


Legacies: Divided We Fall

by ChronicOlicity



Series: Legacies [4]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Married Olicity, Married Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, Olicity Fluff, Olicity focused, Olicity's children, Plotty, Romantic Fluff, dad!Oliver, established olicity, mom!Felicity, olicity family fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:19:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 122,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5747617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicOlicity/pseuds/ChronicOlicity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been seven years since Team Arrow founded the Justice League, and the world’s first alliance of superheroes shows no sign of slowing down. Between a pair of trouble-making twins, running for Mayor, managing a billion-dollar company, plus fighting whatever crazy new thing Supreme Evil throws their way, Oliver and Felicity have never been busier.</p><p>But Supreme Evil always has a plan, and dangerous secrets have a nasty habit of coming back to bite. A face from the future leaves Oliver’s friendship with Barry hanging by a thread, and fresh revelations from Project CADMUS only push the old friends to a breaking point.<br/>The stakes have never been higher, and the rift between the Green Arrow and the Flash forces everyone in the Justice League to choose sides. Friendships are tested, alliances formed, and everyone must decide where they stand. Especially when a new threat rises in the face of the impending civil war…</p><p>United they stand, divided they fall.</p><p>The conclusion to the Legacies series.</p><p>(As of 22 June 2016, on temporary hiatus while the writer goes and tinkers away at a S2 rewrite of sorts :D)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Status Quo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. I really took a long break, didn’t I? In my defense, it was really nice not having to rush updates, although I did get itchy fingers from wanting to write and not having a story to update. The delay was one part writer’s block, one part schoolwork, and one part nervousness. Oliver and Felicity were in a really happy place post-Legacies, and I guess a part of me wanted to keep them that way before Supreme Evil (see above) comes crashing into the mix.  
> About the update schedule, I can’t make any promises (especially since school’s started), but if I know anything about certain people (COUGH, Pidanka, Klarolicityswan), it’s that they’ll keep me on track :D  
> I won’t lie and say this story is going to be easy to write, but if you decide to get onboard, thank you, and once again - so, so sorry for whatever happens next, because if you thought Legacies was crazy, this one just might get crazier :D  
> Cheers,  
> ChronicOlicity

“Oliver Queen — long-hailed as the unexpected contender in the race for Mayor of Starling City — experienced a surge in poll numbers yesterday, putting him neck and neck with incumbent mayor Celia Castle. Pundits attribute this to Mr. Queen’s string of successful campaigns in the ongoing restoration of the Glades, which some argue never fully recovered after the devastating earthquake of 2012. Many are of course skeptical that Mr. Queen will continue the restoration if elected, but Queen Industries has publicly pledged to fund the initiative —”

“You’re welcome,” Felicity said to no one in particular, using a fork to fish eggshells out of the frying pan.

Raisa smoothed a sharp crease into a napkin and added it to the pile in her lap. She’d been around Felicity’s cooking long enough (as passive witness and/or occasional firefighter) to sit far, far out of the blast radius. In this case, at the kitchen counter, in a seat primely angled to watch the morning news.

“Mrs. Queen used to say her son was born to be on TV screen, so good-looking,” she said, with an approving nod at the television. “Blue eyes, bones in cheek like knife, smile that will make you need cold drink…”

“— billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne also pledged his support to the restoration, the latest in a series of endorsements for Mr. Queen’s mayoral bid…”

Bruce’s picture flashed up on screen, and Raisa paused. “But Mr. Wayne is not bad, not bad at all,” she conceded. “You marry him — your babies still good-looking.”

Felicity snorted, and the sea salt she’d been measuring into a ladle spilled into the pan. She stared at the melting salt pile for a grand total of two seconds before shrugging. “No biggie — I’ll just add water.”

“ _Oy_ ,” Raisa muttered. “Are you sure you don’t want me to make breakfast for children? I put smile on pancakes like Oliver.”

“No thanks, Raisa,” Felicity answered, sucking a smear of butter off her finger. “I got this.”

“Eggs burning, dear,” Raisa said placidly, and made her speedy exit from the kitchen, possibly to check that the smoke alarms were still in operation.

The eggs and butter sputtered loudly in the pan, but Felicity’s attention was still on the news.

“Preparations for Justice Day celebrations continue around the city, a holiday commemorating the founding of the Justice League seven years ago. While critics of the League cite its protective policy towards members’ identities and the minimal level of governmental supervision as reasons for disbandment, the public shows no sign of turning its back on the tradition of honoring the civilian group, some even calling it Starling City’s very own team of _superheroes_. Mayor Castle has publicly issued invitations to founding members, such as the Green Arrow, Arsenal, and the Flash, requesting their presence at the annual parade next week…”

Felicity was momentarily diverted by a familiar pair of arms wrapping themselves around her waist. “Hi,” Oliver said, planting a scratchy kiss on her neck. “You’re up early.”

She proudly tilted the pan up to show him what she was making. ”Scrambled eggs,” she explained. “Hazel likes hers crispy.”

Oliver remained conspicuously silent, staring at the smoking pan with raised eyebrows. She could hear the gears inside his head whirring, comparing the picture-perfect recipes in his cranium to the uniquely _Smoak_ concoction hissing quietly on the stove.

The funny thing about being married to Oliver for six years _—_ maybe seven _—_ was his good-humored acceptance of her relaxed standards in the culinary arts. But the borderline _hilarious_ thing was how his tolerance barely extended to their children's food consumption, like it physically pained him to watch Tommy and Hazel chow down on green waffles and the occasional misshapen _kreplach_.

“I thought we agreed that I’d do the cooking in our marriage,” he remarked, with an admirable attempt at nonchalance.

“That was _one_ time,” Felicity said. “And — in my defense — Chicken Cordon Bleu is very, _very_ hard to get right.”

“And I’ll forever cherish the memory of spending Valentine’s Day in the emergency room,” Oliver answered, punctuating the sentence with another kiss, this time to her shoulder. “But I’m still doing the cooking.”

Felicity swatted at him with the spatula. “One good branzino and he thinks he’s _Ratatouille_ ,” she teased.

“The cartoon rat? Really?” Oliver said, turning her towards him in a not-so-subtle attempt at maneuvering her away from the stove. “That’s what I get after seven years of making you dinner?”

Felicity nodded. “Mm-hm, and I’ve got news for you, mister, because I am coming after you for Best Cook in the family, just as soon as these eggs —”

Something popped in the pan and Felicity yelped, grabbing Oliver around the neck.

“—die in a fiery conflagration,” she said lamely, staring at the smoke.

Unfazed, Oliver leaned over to turn off the gas. “Felicity Queen, I think it’s safe to say you’ve failed the scrambled eggs,” he said neatly, poking at the blackened contents of the frying pan.

Felicity poked his chest. “ _Smug_.”

Oliver made a noise of assent and pulled her flush against him, his hands in the small of her back. “I _am_ being smug,” he said. “Because cooking is the only thing I happen to be better at than my beautiful, genius wife.”

Felicity pretended to consider this. “Better,” she said finally. “Good morning, handsome, mayoral-candidate-husband.”

Maybe it was a cue, maybe it was just habit, but Oliver ducked his head just as Felicity lifted hers, and they met nearly in the middle for their first kiss of the morning. Burned breakfast or not, Felicity felt the upward curve of his lips against her own, and smiled into the kiss — a phenomenon as stubborn as it was irresistible. Morning Oliver smelled like soap and aftershave, his hair still a little damp from a fresh shower, skin radiating warmth through a crisply ironed work shirt.

As much as Felicity hated mornings, she loved AM Oliver, the kind of Oliver who — if she was still stubbornly asleep on a weekday — leaned over the bed to wake her with a kiss on the neck, the kind of Oliver who rolled up his sleeves to make breakfast for everyone, and kept obediently still while she knotted his tie for him in front of their dresser mirror.

“You should lead with that next time,” Felicity whispered, her lips just brushing his.

“I was planning to,” Oliver whispered back. “But you were already downstairs.”

Felicity laughed. “Never too late to get back into bed,” she suggested, and she was only barely kidding.

As if on cue, there was a loud thud from somewhere upstairs, accompanied by a muffled shriek. Oliver buried a laugh in Felicity’s hair, the two of them listening to the first chaotic stirrings the house didn’t quite feel right without.

“Except when it is,” she amended. “Kids are up.”

Oliver kissed her cheek. “You check backpacks and homework, I’ll do breakfast and hair.”

Felicity nodded, still holding on tight. “Brace for imminent impact in three…two…”

Oliver turned just in time to intercept a pair of blurs hurtling into the kitchen at _Barry-sights-a-burrito_ speeds. " _One_ ," he grunted, swinging around with a twin on each arm. “Good morning, monsters.”

"Morning!"

"Morning!"

Hazel was already attempting to scale her father's back, talking fast enough to make even Felicity's head spin. Tommy, who'd long-since accepted that he was outclassed in the battle for first piggyback ride, settled instead for his designated seat at the breakfast bar.

In theory, anyway, since he was too busy bickering with his sister at light-speed (Felicity suspected they'd created code words) that he kept missing the seat.

So to speak.

"Whoa, whoa," Felicity said, grabbing Tommy under the arms to help him into the chair. "Can't the two of you split a piece of toast and call it even?"

"Nuh-uh," Hazel said, clinging onto the back of Oliver's neck like a tiny blonde lemur.

Tommy stuck his tongue out at his sister, ignoring Felicity's attempt to smooth down the cowlicks all over his dark brown head.

"Jeez, did you stick your finger in the power outlet?" she asked, before realizing that she might have given her hell-raising twins a very, _very_ bad idea.

 _Au contraire_ , it only made Tommy sit up straighter in his seat, eyes aglow. "Uncle Cisco said the Flash, like, plugged himself into a power outlet, like a computer, and waited until it was raining outside, with like lightning, and charged himself all up, and then ran — like _boosh_ — straight into a wall!" He looked expectantly at his parents. "Can I do that for Christmukkah?"

"You mean, are we going to let you run straight into a wall?" Oliver pretended to consider the question, cracking eggs into a mixing bowl. "Only if Santa says so.”

Hazel folded her hands on top of Oliver’s head in an almost business-like fashion. “Is it true that the Flash can go through walls?” she asked.

“Is it true the Flash is the President?”

“Is it true that the Flash is a girl?”

“The Flash isn’t a _girl’s_ name,” Tommy scoffed.

Hazel shot up straight, her hair practically standing on end with indignation. “Is too.”

“Is not.”

“ _Too!_ ”

“ _Not!_ ”

Felicity and Oliver covertly exchanged glances. Due to Barry’s decision to continue with a secret identity, and/or the twins’ more talkative tendencies, they had no idea who Central City’s resident superhero really was.

Or that he could consume eight-hundred-and-fifty beef guac tacos in one go, and still have the muscle definition of a long-distance runner (unfair).

Hazel flapped her elbows beside Oliver’s ears, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that he was also making scrambled eggs and bacon. “ _Da-ad_ ,” she said. “You didn’t answer my _won-der-ings_.”

The fact that she pronounced _won_ like _wontons_ only made it ten times cuter.

“Wonderings?” Felicity said. “Gold star, Hazel Artemis. Someone learned a new word.”

“Hey, I Googled it,” Tommy interjected. “I know one-der…one-der- _things_ too.”

Felicity dropped a messy kiss onto his curls and cuddled him tight enough to get a giggle. “Of course you do — you’re my little genius, monster one of two. Orange juice or milk?”

“Milk,” the twins said simultaneously.

Felicity hugged the milk carton, floored by the cuteness overload. “Every time.”

“ _Da-ad_.” Hazel wiggled against Oliver’s back like a squirmy puppy. “You didn’t answer my _won-der-ings_.”

Oliver laughed. “Sorry, sweetie, but there’s just so many of them. Daddy can’t keep track of them all.”

“Because _I_ passed on the curiosity gene,” Felicity said proudly, detaching Hazel from Oliver’s back so he could serve breakfast. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

That got Felicity a squeeze somewhere around the waist. “And I love your mother all the more for it,” Oliver agreed. “But _that_ is enough questions before breakfast.”

“But _daaaad_ —”

“Dad’s right,” Felicity added, before the puppy-dog eyes went full blast. She ushered Hazel into a chair while Oliver dished out non-burnt scrambled eggs (psh, _whatever_ ). “Five questions for the car ride later, if you eat your eggs. Deal?”

Vague noises of acquiescence, and quite possibly some under-the-table kicking. Felicity watched to make sure at least some of the food was making it into their mouths before reaching for the coffee. Steaming cup in hand, she leaned on Oliver with a faint sigh of relief.

“Another semi-successful morning at the Queen household,” she whispered, and felt Oliver’s lips brush the side of her head.

Suffice it to say that Felicity had seen a lot of Olivers, since the day he’d first walked into her office with a bad excuse and a bullet-ridden laptop. It didn’t take a professional psychotherapist to tell that the guy had a limited range of emotional settings, most of them hovering around the angry-face range of the spectrum. There was broody Oliver, thundercloud Oliver, all-my-fault-Oliver, and the rare half-smile Oliver showed when he thought no one was watching.

It had taken a long time, longer than she wanted to admit, for Happy Oliver to even be one of the options. Sometimes, Felicity experienced a little thrill, a little skip between heartbeats, when she turned her head and caught Oliver’s smile — the natural, at ease smile of someone who was truly, genuinely happy.

But they’d come a long way since then. Which was how Felicity knew that Oliver’s default setting these days was _Happy_ , and how she knew even without looking that he was grinning.

“I love our mornings,” he said, and Felicity smiled too.

Because neither of them would have had it any other way.

* * *

Oliver picked a dry fragment of leaf out from the back of Hazel’s head. “Hazel Artemis, am I ever going to stop finding parts of trees in your hair?” he asked, combing through the tangles with his fingers.

“I only climbed the little tree,” Hazel protested. “Aunt Thea told me I could try the — oh. Never mind.”

“And rest assured, I will be having a word with your aunt about letting you climb trees,” Oliver promised. “Lots of spiders up there.”

Hazel blinked, evidently intrigued by the idea. “Big ones?”

Felicity choked on her coffee. “ _Backfire alert_. Thanks for that one, hun.”

Oliver cleared his throat hastily. “And what hair do you want today?” he asked Hazel.

“Braid, please,” she announced. “I want the one that looks like a fish.”

“I think we can manage that,” Oliver said, parting her now leaf-free hair down the middle.

“Tommy, did you ask Connor for help with your math homework?” Felicity asked abruptly, and Oliver looked over at her wary tone, knowing full well his teenage son’s tendency to go off-road while babysitting.

Tommy took his time, chewing and swallowing his raisin toast before he answered.

“Nope.”

“Why?” Oliver asked, and Felicity showed him the question at the bottom of the creased worksheet.

“ _Why do we learn mathematics?_ ” he read aloud.

And below that, in a scrawl that bore some resemblance to his own, Felicity tapped the answer:

 _TAXES_.

Oliver’s eyebrows shot up. “How do you know about taxes?” he asked.

“Gramps,” Tommy said matter-of-factly. “He’s always complaining about taxes.”

Even after a few years, it still took a second for Oliver to register that he meant Commissioner Lance, since married to the effervescently charming Donna Smoak.

“Nana says taxes are like money, and math is like money, so taxes are like math.” Tommy shrugged and craned his neck to see over his plate. “Can I have another piece of bacon?”

Oliver pushed the plate towards his son, shaking his head at how readily children — especially children with half of Felicity’s DNA — absorbed from their surroundings. “Were you like this when you were his age?” he asked, still a little dumbfounded.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Felicity answered, returning the kids’ homework to their respective bags. “At least he’s not learning about your father-in-law’s expletive-heavy views on the Starling Rockets’ season performance. But don’t worry, I told my mom and the kids to put their hands over their ears and hum the _Dreidel_ song if and when he gets going.”

“I honestly don’t think I’m ever going to get used to Capt—Commissioner Lance being called my _father-in-law_ ,” Oliver said.

“Stay in adjustment-limbo all you want — they’re coming over next week. Justice Day barbecue.”

“We are _not_ calling it that.”

“Everyone from school is dressing up for Justice Day,” Hazel told them, twirling a piece of bacon on the tip of her fork. “Robbie Fisher said that his daddy said the Green Arrow will get beat by the Flash, ‘cuz he’s so slow. So I took his action figure and put it on top of a tree.”

“Hazel Artemis,” Felicity said warningly.

“Just a _little_ tree.”

“Hazel,” Oliver said. “Robbie Fisher’s dad isn’t wrong. I’m not very fast compared to the Flash. You can’t keep getting into fights with people who tell you that.”

Hazel rolled her eyes. “Can too.”

Oliver tied the elastic at the end of the braid and gave it a gentle tug. “Not polite to roll your eyes, sweetie.”

“But mommy rolls her eyes at daddy all the time,” Tommy volunteered.

“Oh, this is where you chime in, huh?” Felicity said, and gave him a poke in the ribs that made her son rock back in his chair, laughing. “Well, for your information, I have a special deal with daddy. Every time I roll my eyes, I have to give him a kiss.”

To demonstrate, she leaned over and pecked Oliver on the cheek. “See?”

Oliver gave her waist a squeeze before letting her go. Hazel looked vaguely hurt that she wasn’t included in the deal, but the frown evaporated when he kissed the top of her head. “Finish your breakfast and I’ll drive you two monsters to school. Come on — backpack, shoes. Front door in five minutes.”

Tommy put a leftover wedge of raisin toast in his mouth and padded over to hug Felicity around the middle. “ _Bwai mfom_ ,” he mumbled.

Felicity dropped a kiss on his forehead and did the same for Hazel. “Have a good day, okay? Stay out of trouble — listen to your father!”

The twins exchanged gleeful looks and took off towards the front door, shoes banging on the floorboards, shrieks of laughter echoing through the house. Oliver picked his phone and keys with a laugh. “No they won’t,” he translated.

Felicity came up to him and straightened his tie, adjusting the dimple until it was just right. “Well, I’m pretty sure that has something to do with you never putting your foot down when it comes to our kids,” she said, her tone lightly teasing.

“I put my foot down,” Oliver insisted, though he was at a loss for examples. “Occasionally.”

“Mm. Better work on those debate answers, Mr. Queen,” Felicity said. “You can’t leave everything to those ridiculous cheekbones.”

Oliver laughed. “Come work for my campaign. We could use a genius on our team.”

“I’m already on your team — albeit twenty blocks away and in a thirty-four-floor office building.” Felicity tugged playfully on the end of his tie, bringing him closer still. Oliver humored her, sliding his palms down to her waist, his back to the breakfast bar.

The kitchen was as quiet as it had been before they were interrupted, sunlight pouring in from the windows and surrounding them in a blaze of warm gold. Oliver held his wife to him with one hand and cupped her face with the other, and felt himself relax into the easy act of loving Felicity Queen.

“You sure you don’t mind running a little late for Alex?” Felicity murmured. “School isn’t on the way to the campaign office.”

Oliver shook his head. “You have a morning meeting,” he said, touching his forehead to hers. “One of us has to have a job that actually pays.”

Felicity groaned in mock-exasperation. “Bruce’s flying in for the LexCorp thing — I forgot.” She nudged his shoulder. “Hey, maybe we should switch places. You manage Queen Industries and I’ll run for mayor. No one’s gonna notice, right?”

Oliver rubbed her back in soothing circles. “You,” he said, “are doing a better job of running the company than I did.”

Felicity smiled at that. “You’re only saying that because I’m sleeping with you.”

Oliver tipped her chin up with his finger. “Is it working?”

Felicity closed her eyes, basking in the sun. “ _Maybe._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random Thoughts:  
> \- Full disclosure, it is SO weird writing Hazel and Tommy. Obviously, I have no children, and a strong argument could be made that I suck at interacting with them, so if they come off as weird, it's from an utter lack of experience.  
> \- WHAT WAS THAT CROSSOVER EPISODE???!! WHAT THE ACTUAL BALLS DID THE WRITERS DO????! WHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAY??????! (Bear in mind, this is a severely pared-down reaction compared to what it was during/after 4x08)  
> \- I'm not entirely sure I buy the CW's version of Vandal Savage. I'm sorry, but even if he crashes through a window and starts flinging knives, I can't see through my laughter-tears because he whipped out a FAN in the middle of a fight. A FAN. No. Just no.  
> \- Ditto for the Egyptian flashbacks. Bye-bye birdies.  
> \- I'm not ready for all the angst post-4x09. Wheelchair. THE WHEELCHAIR. *cries*  
> \- Oh, almost forgot. What the actual hell, Laurel. What the actual hell.


	2. The Kaznia Incident

“So I’m looking over the guys you sent over to beef up the security detail — who have enough butch in them to make the Terminator cry, just BTW — and I realize that I have _half_ the U.S. Army hanging around in the lobby-slash-my-office, but I still don’t see my favorite badass soldier friend.” Felicity said, swiveling around in her office chair, phone wedged between shoulder and ear. “What gives, man?”

Diggle chuckled. “I chose those guys with you and Mr. Wayne’s security in mind — are you telling me they’re not up to scratch?”

“Not the point, John. Those guys are terrifying. But frankly, I’m a little hurt you won’t make the trip out of your fancy office to see your best female friend.”

“I’d go all the way there just to have coffee with you, Felicity — you know that. But if I slack off, Roy’s gonna rat me out to Lyla.”

Felicity took a sip of coffee. “Ah, Senator Michaels,” she said. “That, I get. But doesn’t Roy just moonlight for you in the background check department?”

“He charges me the _Friends and Family_ rate, so I’m told,” Diggle confirmed. “But I bring him in for a reason. That kid could sneak in anywhere and catch anyone if he wanted to — which unfortunately keeps me honest.”

Felicity snorted. “Yeah, real convincing. For an ex-almost-con, Roy has a surprisingly flappy mouth.”

“Hey, you can’t choose family,” Diggle said. “On an unrelated note — did you get your invitation?”

“What? To the Justice Day thing?” Felicity dug around her drawer until she found the (slightly wrinkled) card, wedged between a malfunctioning stapler and an open box of tacks. Which she managed to stab herself with.

“ _Ow_ ,” she said, blowing on her thumb. “Seven years and my subconscious still files everything Oracle-related under _Secret, Do Not Touch_.”

“Even after we outed ourselves on live TV?” Diggle asked, amused. “That’s some Oliver-level conditioning — you should probably see a therapist about that.”

“Ha-ha,” Felicity said sarcastically, endeavoring not to get her blood on the fancy card. “I don’t know about going up on stage with the Mayor. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love a good parade in my honor as much as the next person, but isn’t that a little… _gauche_? Feels a tad Red Russia to me.”

“Depends. Are they putting our faces on huge banners and presenting us with keys to the city?”

“You know what I mean, John.”

“What I don’t get is why Mayor Castle’s inviting her chief competition to take the spotlight on Justice Day. Oliver’s already neck and neck with her in the polls. That can’t be smart.”

“Oh, easy.” Felicity could practically hear Oliver’s campaign advisor Alex rattling off a Sorkin-esque monologue about media and the importance of _appearances_. “Because if she doesn’t, people are going to think she’s petty for editorializing the city’s history to her benefit, and if she does, everyone — and by that I mean her campaign office — is going to leak that she insisted on inviting Oliver. Which makes it look like she’s a tough and fair candidate for giving credit where credit’s due, even if it’s her main rival, and _that_ gives her brownie points.”

Diggle muttered a curse word. “This is why I hate politics.”

Felicity mimed a weighing scale with both hands. “Married to a Senator, best friends with mayoral candidate,” she pointed out. “You’re really between a rock and a hard place, John.”

“Touché,” Diggle said. “So, how awkward is it going to be if Barry shows up to the parade?”

“You need to be more specific,” Felicity said, looking out the window. “Because half his secret-identity-protected-face is gonna be recorded in HDTV and broadcast citywide? Or because Oliver and Barry haven’t seen each other in six months, after what I’ve been told to refer to as the _Kaznia Incident_?”

“That frosty, huh?” Diggle said. “I knew they weren’t talking much, but then again, Oliver was never the type to call and catch up.”

“Yeah, somehow gabbing over the phone was never really Oliver’s thing. Not even _Happy Oliver_.” Felicity made a face. “Huh. Weird.”

Diggle snorted. “I’m surprised you haven’t locked them in a room together and forced them to clear the air.”

“That’s when I can count on one of them to be the more evolved one — _you_ , for instance, if you and Oliver ever fought over anything other than sports teams. But everyone’s been busy. Barry has a kid, Oliver has _kids_ , my kids are Oliver’s kids, we’re all still juggling day jobs and the Justice League…it’s hard,” Felicity sighed, and did a full three-sixty swivel in her desk chair. For dramatic effect.

“You want my two cents?” Diggle said.

“ _Yes_ ,” Felicity answered. “Jeez, I’ve been hinting around for it since you picked up the phone.”

“I think that Barry and Oliver are very different people, and I’m not taking sides about what happened in Kaznia. But I _will_ say that it happened because they see the world very differently — and they always will.”

“Plus they’re men, and the default way with the Y chromosome is _I’m right you’re wrong_ ,” Felicity added.

“That too,” Diggle agreed. “Oliver’s always been stubborn, and Barry’s not a rookie anymore. He won’t listen to Oliver’s advice if he knows he can do better, and Oliver doesn’t always recognize equals when he sees them. Kaznia just showed how much they still need to learn about working together.”

Felicity pinched the bridge of her nose. “ _Great_. Here’s to the most awkward barbecue in the history of ever.”

“C’mon Felicity, you know Oliver and Barry. They’ll work out their issues when it counts. They just need the right incentive.”

Felicity blew her breath out in a sigh. “Where’s a couple of Mirakuru soldiers when you need ‘em, right?”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

There was a knock, and Felicity — still chortling — spun her chair around. “Oo, looks like my one o’clock’s here. See you Sunday?”

“Ribs and beer,” Diggle confirmed. “Tell the Bat I said hi.”

“Will do, John,” Felicity said, and hung up with a smile.

“Am I interrupting?” Bruce asked, standing in the doorway.

“Nope.” Felicity got to her feet, arms out for a hug. “I thought you were aiming for fashionably late — _again_.”

“How else will you know it’s me?” he answered. “Nice security in the lobby. Israeli-trained?”

A long time ago, Felicity might have asked, and Bruce would have answered in his usual enigmatic way. Some obscure tattoo partially poking out of a shirt collar, a special scar on someone’s thumb that could _only_ have come from a kind of weapon used by _Secret-Whatsits_ and _Obscure-Training-Thingamajig_ …

These days she just went with it.

“You’ll have to ask John. He says hi, by the way.”

Bruce wisely didn’t resist when Felicity hugged him in greeting, and kissed her lightly on the cheek before they pulled apart. “You look wonderful, by the way,” he said. “Daylight suits you.”

“You should try it sometime,” Felicity said, eyeing him speculatively. “Can’t talk to bats your whole life, you know.”

Bruce took his seat, resting his fingertips together in a neat steeple. “You know I do my best work in the dark. So — shall we?”

Felicity sank back into her office chair and rolled herself towards the keyboard. “One of these days, I’m going to make you sit down for small talk,” she promised, keying the coded sequence into her computer.

There was a reason Felicity’s new office — unlike her old one in Palmer Tech — had a lot less glass in the walls. For one, it was a lot less easy for unnamed mob assassins to shoot through the conference room (long, long story). For another, the added privacy was great for work emergencies, if she had to switch gears during her lunch hour.

From work-work to _work_.

Felicity laid her palm flat on the glass surface of her desk, and a blue light swept across the room for a retinal scan of its inhabitants.

“ _Recognized: Felicity Queen_ ,” ORACLE said. “ _Recognized: Bruce Wayne_.”

The door locked itself with a faint click, and a wall of steel shielding descended from the ceiling to secure the entrance. The bookshelves receded into the floor, replaced by forensic analysis equipment and workstations, the bread and butter of covert detective business. The room grew steadily darker as the same steel hissed one by one across the tall windows, until the only light in the room came from the glass desk at Felicity’s fingertips.

With a flick of her hand, the word ORACLE bloomed into an entire console of holographic projections and moving screens.

Her own little workspace.

“ _Welcome, Oracle_ ,” said the computer. “ _How may I assist you today?_ ”

* * *

“Luthor approached _us_ for the deal,” Felicity said. “Why would he do that if he knows there’s a connection to the Justice League?”

Bruce drummed his fingers on the back of Felicity’s chair. “Luthor’s dirty — we know that much. If he’s risking closer scrutiny by a member of the Justice League, he must want something from Queen Industries. Badly.”

“Or Wayne Enterprises,” Felicity suggested. “And you think he has something to do with the seismic activity we’ve been picking up in Starling?”

“I never _think_ anything,” Bruce said. “I look at the evidence. LexCorp turned over their numbers in preparation of the deal, and I took a closer look at their numbers. Their R &D budget raised a red flag. Huge expenditure, written off as some kind of expense for a government contract. If there’s a reason he needs something from QI, it’ll be in there.”

Felicity nodded. “Not a bad place to start,” she said. “But that contract — unfortunately — is completely legit. Which means that I’ll see your R&D budget, and raise you —” she tapped a key to bring up another spreadsheet “— one Applied Sciences department.”

Bruce frowned. “LexCorp doesn’t have a substantial Applied Sciences department.”

“Because Mr. Luthor made it disappear overnight. I went a couple years back, and it looks like they merged R&D with Applied Sciences. But there was still something fudged with the numbers, so I asked if I could see what they’d been working on, pre-vanishing act.”

“You _asked_ ,” Bruce said, arms folded, his skepticism dial cranked up to full. “Who?”

Felicity made a face. “Fine, I ‘ackhayed’ into their systems, okay?” she said. “Looks like they were developing some kind of LHC before Luthor took it off the books.”

“LHC,” Bruce repeated. “Hadron Collider? A —”

“— particle accelerator, exactly,” Felicity said. “Personally, I’d be a tad more nervous about LexCorp having a LHC than I would with STAR Labs, and look how that one turned out. A particle accelerator could explain the increased seismic activity being picked up by the sensors, but —”

“— not why Luthor needs QI or Wayne Enterprises,” Bruce finished. “So there’s something more to their particle accelerator — something they don’t have the tech for, but we do.”

“And based on what you’ve told me about Mr. Luthor’s exploits — insert shudder here — I’m guessing he’s planning something not-so-nice with it.”

Bruce straightened up, studying the blueprints projected in front of them. “We should monitor dark matter radiation levels. If they spike, then we’ll know there’s something to be concerned about.”

Felicity brought up the scans herself. “One step ahead of you. I’ve been scanning the atmosphere for the last week — nothing out of the ordinary.”

“ _Yet_ ,” he reminded her. “Don’t underestimate what Lex Luthor is capable of. Also, we should —”

“— cross-reference patent databases to see if there’s anything he might want to borrow.” Felicity was typing. “Already there.”

Bruce gave her a sidelong glance. “Are you ever going to let me finish my sentences?”

Felicity grinned. “Hey, if you want a sidekick, you should talk to Dick. Or is it Tim, now?”

Bruce didn’t take the bait. “Keep me posted,” he said. “Needless to say, you’ll be telling your husband about this.”

“You can tell him yourself, if you stop by for dinner. Oliver fixed the column after your last — um — _sparring_ session,” Felicity said, making liberal use of air quotes.

Bruce laughed. “It was a sparring session,” he said. “I promise.”

“Yeah, last I checked, when one person starts throwing explosive projectiles, it stops being _sparring_. Sparring suggests that there’s no actual chance of being dismembered.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Felicity shot him her best Death Glare. “Stick to Bo staffs, or I’ll sic the twins on you.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t hurt their uncle Bruce,” he said, visibly amused.

“That’s what you think,” Felicity muttered. “They _adore_ their dad and you should see the bruises he gets from them.”

“Duly noted, but I have to be in Gotham by tonight. The Falcones are running a shipment through the docks, and I intend to be there when they do.”

“In your special work clothes, I’m guessing,” Felicity commented. “Can we expect you at the Justice Day parade?”

A flicker of a smile crossed Bruce’s face as he buttoned his jacket and turned to go. “Not really my thing,” he said. “But all the same, you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished. The League’s come a long way.”

“Seven years,” she said, with a small shake of her head. “We’re still here. Still fighting.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

* * *

Oliver looked up at the sound of quiet footsteps. The mansion was carpeted snugly from wall to wall, but he’d nonetheless perfected the skill of being able to tell when someone was coming — a fact he’d used infinitely to his advantage as a kid, sneaking illicit guests in and out of his bedroom (since converted to storage) without attracting his parents’ attention.

Felicity slipped back into their bedroom, wearing an old T-shirt and loose flannel pants washed nearly threadbare. She’d tucked the kids into bed thousands of times before, but it still amused Oliver to see her lean on the door until it clicked shut, as if the delicate balance of the mansion at night would be derailed by anything louder than a footstep.

“After two renditions and an extended remix version of _Esio Trot_ , I think it’s safe to say that the kids are down for the night,” she whispered.

“You know they don’t have enhanced hearing, right?” Oliver whispered back.

“ _Shhh_ ,” Felicity answered, kicking off her slippers and climbing into bed. “I’m not risking it.”

Oliver had been workshopping a few campaign speeches in his notebook, but he laid it facedown on the mattress so Felicity could rest her head on his chest instead. This she did with a contented little sound, like a cat purring in its favorite spot.

“Long day?” he asked, playing with her hair.

Felicity nodded slowly. “Board meetings, merger meetings, secret vigilante meetings, lots and lots of meetings.” She propped her chin up on her hand. “You?”

“Focus groups and strategy sessions,” Oliver answered. “Between you and me, I’m glad we’re not on duty tonight.”

Felicity’s mouth dropped open in mock horror. “ _No_ ,” she said, visibly fighting not to smile. “You mean you’re an actual human being who’d rather have dinner with his wife and kids instead of kicking down doors as a masked vigilante? Don’t let Roy hear you say that, or he’ll throw in the towel.”

Oliver gave her hip a retaliatory squeeze and Felicity laughed, curling away from him to protect herself when he continued to tickle her. “Wait _, wait_ — _!_ ”

It’d been a long day, and half the pillows and most of the duvet was on the floor by the time they reached a truce. Felicity’s face was flushed and she lay stroking Oliver’s hair, still shaking from the occasional giggle.

It was a cool, late August evening, and the branches of the cherry trees scratched gently at their bedroom window, casting long shadows across the thick carpet by the fireplace.

Oliver rested his chin on her belly, speaking into the handspan of bare skin between her T-shirt and pajama bottoms. “So what do you have planned for the rest of the evening?” he asked teasingly, wondering what Felicity’s reaction would be if he started using his teeth in their current position.

Felicity _hm_ -ed quietly. “Well,” she said, “I was going to take a look at your campaign notebook, maybe proofread a few of your speeches, add a little bit of inspirational gold, et. cetera, but all _this_ —” she broke off to give his abdomen a loving pat “— is making me reconsider.”

Oliver pretended to consider. “And what did you have in mind?”

Felicity grinned and pulled him gently by the arms. Oliver took his time, teasing the hem of her shirt past her stomach, tracking kisses along neck and shoulder until Felicity was practically squirming beneath him.

“I’m — _ah_ — probably going to regret saying this,” she mumbled, “but you need to — to call Barry.”

Oliver instantly stopped what he was doing. “Where’s this coming from?” he asked, breathing hard.

Felicity gave him a look. From appearances alone, she wasn’t any less frustrated than he was — which told him that she was serious. Very much so. “You mean, why am I bringing up the elephant in the room right now?” she said. “Because this is Smoak-level bad timing, _ergo_ , a fantastic way to get your attention.”

“Felicity…”

She shushed him. “For obvious reasons, I never took sides in the whole Kaznia Incident, and I stayed out of it because I thought that you’d talk to Barry at some point. But you’ve avoided each other for six months now, and it’s time to stop the man-silence and sulking.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “I haven’t been _sulking_ —”

Felicity silenced him with a look. “Don’t make me withhold this,” she said, gesturing at herself. “Because I’m warning you — I had a _very_ inactive adolescent sex life and I can go right back to it. You, on the other hand…were well on your way to giving Casanova a run for his money. And before you ask, Raisa told me.”

“I was on an island in the North China Sea for the better part of five years,” Oliver said stiffly. “I can handle it.”

Felicity tipped her head slightly to the side, fully aware of his lingering attention on her state of undress. “Can you, though?”

Deep down, Oliver knew it was a miracle Felicity had even waited six months to do this, and given their past experiences, he had no reason to doubt her determination, or her unbeatable stubbornness when it came to standoffs. The silence between them stretched to breaking point, and Oliver finally shook his head, torn between laughter and exasperation. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

“You’ll talk to him?” she asked. “Pinky swear?”

It was Oliver’s turn to give her a look. “I think we’re past pinky swears at this point,” he said, nudging her legs apart again. “You just reminded me who has all the cards.”

“True.” Felicity obligingly lifted her hips so that he could pull her pajama bottoms off. “So on a scale of one to ten, how mad are you that I played the _No Sex_ card?”

Oliver nipped the inside of her thigh and heard her gasp. “One way to find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Threw in a little Bruce Wayne appearance for you :P  
> The Kaznia Incident will remain a mystery...but suffice it to say (for now) that it was a mission where Oliver and Barry butted heads. And Oliver may or may not have a good reason for being ticked off with Barry, and vice versa.  
> Phew. It's Sunday night and I have a buttload of stuff to read for class tomorrow, so until the next update :)


	3. The Watchtower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooo. I've had a relatively uneventful week, and I wrote the bulk of this update before the emotionally compromising 4x10.

Oliver was late, again. Roy was waiting for him at the entrance to HQ, wearing sunglasses and lounging against a column with a cup of coffee in hand — classic signs that he’d been on a dusk-to-dawn stakeout, either on the job for Diggle’s private security company, or as Arsenal on the streets of Starling.

“Late night?” Oliver asked.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Roy answered, glowering over the rims of his aviators. “What gives, man? We’ve had the same sparring session for years. Are you ever going to show up on time?”

“How else are you going to know it’s me?” Oliver said flatly, as they cut across the immaculate lobby.

The Watchtower’s ground floor had been converted — at the request of the city — into a museum of sorts, commemorating the Justice League from its earliest days, which included all the work they’d done as Team Arrow. The Arrow’s suit was somewhere on a mannequin, as was — inexplicably — Roy’s scruffy red hoodie and Felicity’s long-outdated computer. The so-called _Heroes and Villains_ exhibit meant that the odd jumble of disguises and confiscated weaponry (since disabled) they’d amassed over years of crime fighting had been arranged in glass cases, their backstories etched on plaques for visitors to read.

Oliver had his reservations about leaving Slade Wilson’s mask on display for crowds of tourists to see, but his sister had been in charge of the curating and decisively overruled his vote.

It was already starting to fill up with tourists, most of them coming to see the exhibits for Justice Day. Oliver tried to make his way over to the elevators in the restricted area as unobtrusively as possible, but a few children — with the kind of acuity Oliver had experienced firsthand from his own children — spotted him and started to point.

Roy forced a smile and jerked his wrist in a stiff imitation of a wave, even though Oliver knew he despised getting his picture taken. The obvious reluctance and sunglasses was far from the ideal, but as far as Oliver was concerned, gritted teeth and a grimace was better than the hand gesture Roy used to wave around whenever someone turned a camera lens on him.

Oliver smiled and stopped to speak to a few families who approached, selectively disregarding Roy’s coughing and mimed throat-slashing for him to hurry up.

“We really need to install a back entrance,” Roy muttered.

Oliver smiled at the hand-drawn card one of the kids had tentatively passed to him. He crouched in front of her and pointed at a stick figure with a green hood. “Is that me?” he asked the girl.

She looked up at her mother in wide-eyed panic, who gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Cassie’s _very_ shy,” she explained apologetically. “Come on, Cassie. Tell Mr. Queen about your drawing.”

Oliver smiled encouragingly. “Thank you for the card,” he said. “It’s very pretty.”

“Yeah…” Roy added, his head slightly sideways as if he was trying to decipher who was who. “It’s very…bright.”

Oliver gave him a look, and turned back to the girl. “Can I call you Cassie?” he asked.

Her blonde braids went flying when she nodded. She couldn’t have been older than five, wearing blue plastic glasses that slipped continuously down her nose. She squeaked something that Oliver didn’t catch.

“What was that, sweetheart?” he asked.

“ _W-where’s O-Ora-Or_ …” she trailed off, blushing bright red.

Oliver smiled. “Oracle? Felicity’s not here today,” he explained. “She took our kids to school. I have a daughter, you know. She’s _six_ this year, and her name’s Hazel. What about you?”

“F-four,” Cassie squeaked.

“Four?” Oliver said. “You’re tall for a four-year-old. I thought you were five. I bet you have lots of hobbies, don’t you?”

Cassie still seemed lost for speech.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Queen,” said her mother. “My Cassie normally doesn’t shut up about Oracle — she wants to work in computers and everything…”

Oliver straightened up with a laugh. “No problem at all,” he said, and shook her mother’s hand. “It was very nice to meet you, Cassie.”

He was just turning away when something tugged on his sleeve. Cassie was as red as a tomato, but she beamed. “T-thank you,” she whispered, and Oliver smiled back.

“ _Finally_ ,” Roy muttered, having extricated himself from a small crowd of young mothers. “I’m bringing up a side entrance during the next meeting. I don’t have enough _cheerful_ in me to handle this.”

Oliver flipped the card around to show Roy. “Look, she gave you a frown,” he said, tapping on the crayon rendering of Roy in his Arsenal costume. “We’re adding this to the collection.”

Roy rolled his eyes and mashed the elevator button with his thumb. “Just have another kid already,” he said. “And try not to make multiples this time.”

“I know you don’t hate kids,” Oliver said, as they stepped inside the elevator. “Thea told me what you’re planning to get Hazel and Tommy for Christmukkah.”

“Fine, I don’t hate _your_ kids,” Roy corrected, removing his sunglasses. “Other kids are only cute for — like — _five_ minutes, and just so we’re clear, Hazel and Tommy stayed on _adorable_ because of Felicity’s DNA.”

They both ignored the light sweeping them from head to toe for security verification. “Thanks,” Oliver said sarcastically. “I’ll remember that the next time Connor’s in town.”

“Oh yeah, when’s the little Jackass back in Starling?” Roy asked.

“Please do not call my son a jackass.”

Roy shrugged. “He knows it’s affectionate. You should hear what he calls me.”

“I have a decent idea,” Oliver muttered. “I blame you for the cursing, by the way.”

“Hey, you asked for a babysitter — I gave you a babysitter. Not my fault that the kid’s sixteen and he’s seen all the Quentin Tarantino movies.”

“Because _you_ showed them to him,” Oliver said, almost irritated. “What kind of babysitter lets a twelve-year-old watch _Kill Bill_?”

Roy looked at him like he was insane. “A _normal_ one?”

“ _Recognized: Oliver Queen_ ,” said the computer. “ _Recognized: Roy Harper._ ”

The elevator doors slid open to the subterranean headquarters, where someone was waiting for them, arms reprovingly crossed. “You know, if I was your supervisor, and _if_ we worked for pay, I’d dock it for chronic lateness,” Sin said, tapping her sneakered foot against the floor.

“Morning, Cindy,” Oliver said.

Sin’s frown vanished and she stood on tiptoes to give him a hug. “Hey, Oliver,” she said. “Caught your speech on TV. Nice one.”

“A,” Roy said, “how come _he_ gets a hug, and B, how come _he_ gets to call you Cindy? Last time I did that you punched me in the —”

Before Oliver could warn him (if he’d been inclined to, anyway), Sin whipped around with lightning-fast reflexes and delivered a slap straight to Roy’s gut. “Let me know when you grow a six-pack that doesn’t look like a wrinkle, Abercrombie,” she said, a glint in her eye.

“Low blow,” Roy coughed, nearly doubled over from the hit. “Low…blow.”

Sin reached over and swiped his cup of coffee. “Mm, mocha.”

“So,” Oliver said, moving on, “status report.”

“Yessir.” Sin swiped her thumb across the notepad-sized tablet she carried and began the usual morning recap of the previous night’s shift. “Nothing huge. A couple of alerts popped up on the scanners, mostly threes and fours. ATOM was on firefight duty, Red Arrow and Abercrombie were on bike patrol. Boy Terrific did his computer geek thing —”

“— Curtis,” Oliver prompted.

“—right. There was a code-66 — suspicious incident — but we didn’t find anything. The perps from the other busts made it to SCPD lockup and…the end,” Sin looked up.

“What happened with the code-66?” Oliver asked.

Roy waved a hand. “I checked it out. Kord Industries warehouse — the cameras in the vault and around the west perimeter went dark for a couple minutes, but the managers said nothing was stolen, and the cameras never actually went down. Curtis thought it was probably a technical glitch with the lens and color foc — okay, I wasn’t really paying attention when he explained it. Short version: all good.”

Oliver frowned. “Kord Industries is one of the top tech companies in the world. They don’t _have_ technical glitches.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “Someone’s been talking to the missus.”

“Sin, could you do me a favor and get a copy of the surveillance footage? Felicity can take a second look at it when she’s on duty tonight.”

“Gotcha, GA,” said Sin, already walking off to her workstation. “Just out of curiosity, are you guys doing sticks today, or the fish ladder thing? Cuz if it’s fish, I might turn up and stare. Not in — like — a creepy psycho way. Just — normal psycho.”

“Sticks,” Roy called. “Definitely sticks.”

* * *

“ _Training simulation, complete_ ,” the computer intoned.

The sensor beams swept across the floor, erasing the holographic shadows of virtual enemies…while disregarding a very human presence lying flat on his back.

“ _Correction_ ,” Roy grunted. “Should’ve gone for the salmon ladder.”

Oliver offered a hand to help him up. “Sorry,” he said. “Got carried away.”

“You don’t say.” Roy’s answer was dripping with sarcasm. “I hate to be Captain Obvious here — because you know that’s Cisco’s job — but you do realize the whole point of that training exercise was to hit the bad guys, right? Not me?”

Oliver tucked the rattan canes under one arm and reached for the console with the other. “Should we run another scenario?” he asked. “Gamma?”

Roy sighed and backed into the center of the training room. “I’m probably gonna regret saying this, but right now, I think you need to hit an actual human being — not a sim.”

Oliver raised his eyebrows. “You’re not actually volunteering to let me hit you.”

“Look, I know we’ve maintained a _don’t-ask-don’t-tell_ system when it comes to who we’re married to, but I will say that you and Thea handle stress in pretty much the same way. The difference being that she’s a foot shorter and gets boxing gloves, and you like to hit people with sticks. But hey, no judgment — when I see a puppy trying to chase its tail, I have to help the poor guy out.”

Oliver had some minor issues with the metaphor, but he followed Roy’s lead and stepped onto the darkly reflective floor. “All right,” he said. “If you’re sure it’ll help.”

“I consider myself the expert on Queen family behavior,” Roy said, and looked up at the ceiling. “Computer — uh — DJ thingy — whatever — blast my playlist. Thanks.”

Oliver glared at Roy as the PA system began to pump music into the sparring center. “Really?”

Roy raised his hands in a _don’t shoot the messenger_ way. “Hey, you let your wife install a sound system in here — I’m just utilizing all available resources.”

“It’s a distraction,” Oliver said, an objection that went largely ignored.

Roy cracked his neck and flicked the canes into a starting position. “C’mon. Let’s get this over with.”

Oliver shook his head in exasperation. “Remember — you asked,” he said.

Roy rolled his eyes and lunged. Oliver’s reflexes kicked in and he slapped the cane aside, blocking Roy’s counter-swing with the other.

“Aggressive,” Oliver remarked.

“My teacher had issues,” Roy answered, and shoved.

Oliver backed off, forcing Roy to pursue. They’d trained together for years, long enough to know each other’s moves and tics, weak spots and strengths. The upgraded training facilities were an innovation — especially the fight simulator program that cataloged and imitated a fighter’s moves — but there was something to be said for fighting a flesh-and-blood person. Nothing quite beat the satisfaction of making a swing and having it land — solidly.

Roy swore when Oliver whacked his side with a stick. “ _Asshole_. Who spat in your morning coffee?”

Oliver cocked an eyebrow. “Is this actually what you do with my sister? You let her hit you?”

“ _Never_ tell Thea I said this, but she can do the hitting just fine. You plus Malcolm the Mass-Murdering Psychopath mean I don’t need to _let_ her do anything,” Roy said. “Although, the occasional dirty trick — _that_ I could probably live without.”

“Interesting.” Oliver feinted, and swiped Roy’s leg out from underneath him.

Roy cursed and went down hard on one knee, but swung his canes up to block Oliver’s move.

“What the hell is this?” Oliver asked, glancing up at the speakers.

“Classic rock,” Roy said, like he was stating the obvious. “Didn’t know the 70’s made you so mad. Dig definitely approved.”

Oliver made a face. “It’s definitely not helping,” he said.

“So, you ready to tell me what’s actually going on?” Roy asked. “Or do you need to get a couple more hits in — _mother of f_ — _!_ ”

Oliver twirled the cane behind his back, giving his protege a few seconds to recover his composure. “Maybe a couple more hits,” he agreed. “It’s the music.”

Roy was muttering a string of curses under his breath like a mantra. Amused, Oliver twitched his weapons in a beckoning gesture. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t have all day, Harper.”

Roy charged, but not in the way Oliver was expecting. He ducked underneath Oliver’s outstretched arm and slid forward on his knees, delivering a stinging slap to Oliver’s shin and coming up the other side, grinning.

“How’s that feel?” he asked.

“Deserved,” Oliver admitted.

They each got a few swings in before the canes crashed together in a locked-arm stalemate. “C’mon. Time to spill your guts, Queen,” Roy said. “What happened? First wrinkle in your annoyingly-perfect domestic bliss?”

“Felicity…thinks I should talk to Barry,” Oliver summarized. “And she’s freezing me out until I do.”

“What — so she’s gonna stop leaving you Post-Its on your locker? Oh, the humanity.”

“Not that kind of freezing out,” Oliver said, with a significant look.

“ _Ohhh_.” Roy nodded understandingly. “She played the _No Sex_ card, huh? I hate it when Thea… _doesn’t_ do that, because we don’t discuss anything to do with your sister. I mean, we’ve never even _had_ sex, I swear —”

Oliver interrupted him with a shove, breaking the stalemate. “Get to the point,” he said. “Please.”

“You said yes, right?” Roy prompted. “Because Barry’s your friend and the whole Kaznia thing was just blown completely out of proportion…?”

“I can still feel where I got shot when it rains,” Oliver said dangerously.

Roy ducked his swipe. “Barry apologized.”

“It’s not the same thing, and you know that,” Oliver answered. “We had a plan — a strategy, which _all_ of us agreed on — and at the last moment, the _second_ Barry saw something that looked like an opening, he took it. Zero hesitation, and —”

“Yes, old man, I’m familiar with the story,” Roy said, visibly fighting an eye-roll. “And he left you without backup, _and_ that’s how you got the scars. Not to make two bullets in your back sound like a flu shot, but you’ve had worse. There’s no way you’re holding a grudge over that, and Felicity knows it, because she knows you.”

Oliver could feel his temper rising, tamped-down resentment and everything unsaid threatening to crack his focus.

But he didn’t care.

“You’re right, it’s _not_ about the bullets,” Oliver said, punctuating each sentence with a blow. “I don’t _care_ that I got shot — because I’d take a bullet for anyone on the team. But that’s not what happened. I took a bullet because Barry thinks that running faster, healing faster and doing _God-knows-what-else-faster_ than everyone else entitles him to go solo without checking with his teammates. He — doesn’t get — to do that!”

Roy managed to block each hit, but he stumbled back from the force of Oliver’s last push, and they stared at each other across the floor. “Oliver…” he panted. “Come on. It’s _Barry_.”

Oliver stopped him there, because that was the point. That was _exactly_ the point. “You’re right. Barry’s part of a team. He may be the Flash, and he may be a hero — but having super-speed doesn’t mean he gets to act like he knows better than everyone else. That’s _not_ how this works. That’s _not_ what this team is about.”

It was an ugly thing, the words coming from Oliver’s mouth, and he knew it. He’d given into the simmering anger in his chest, reignited at the memory of what had happened in Kaznia, and the aftermath of it.

But even worse than the anger was the cold, lead-heavy feeling of disappointment at the back of his throat. It tasted like bitter steel, and Oliver’s grip tightened painfully around the rattan canes. The impulse exploded out of him before he could stop it, and before he knew it, he’d cracked the bamboo across his knee and flung the pieces across the floor. One of the broken halves rolled to a stop in front of Roy’s shoe.

Who stared at Oliver like he’d never seen him before. “You think he doesn’t trust you,” Roy said.

“I _know_ he doesn’t,” Oliver answered. “And that’s why I haven’t spoken to Barry — because I don’t know how to deal with the fact that someone I trusted with my life…let me take a bullet for him so that he could be the hero.”

There was a long silence, during which Oliver tried to focus on returning his breathing back to normal, on something other than the thudding beat of his heart…and the godawful music still blaring out of the speakers.

“Can we turn that off please?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

For once in his life, Roy didn’t argue. Oliver heard him push something on the console, and the speakers stuttered abruptly into silence.

“Look, I don’t have the Speed Force, or whatever Cisco and the Geek Squad are calling it these days,” Roy said, leaning on the computer. “But what Barry and I have in common is that we both learned something from the guy who started all this. You’re our mentor, and we won’t forget that, but sometimes, you have a…little problem with letting go. You keep thinking of us as students, even when we’ve kinda outgrown being told what to do.”

Oliver turned. “You’re saying I don’t treat you like an equal?” he said.

“ _Now_ you do. Took you a while, though, and I see you a lot more than Barry does,” Roy pointed out. “I’m just saying, outside Dig and Felicity — you forget that you work with partners, not sidekicks. Barry just needs to know that you’re okay with letting him call the shots sometimes. Does that make sense? I’m not great with the whole sage-ish advice thing — that’s more Dig’s area.”

“It makes sense,” Oliver answered, and sighed heavily. “Was I that bad? As a teacher, I mean.”

Roy rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m going to say something, and don’t ask me to repeat it, okay?”

Oliver nodded. “Okay.”

Roy sucked in a deep breath. “You’re a great mentor — even with the weird weapons and tough love,” he said in a rush. “I’m sure Barry thinks so too.”

There was a long pause, in which Oliver considered Roy’s words.

“I think we’re getting dangerously close to hug territory here,” he said finally.

Roy shoved a stick between them. “Get anywhere near me and I _will_ use this.”

Oliver held up his hands. “I’m not, I promise. I just want to say thank you. This…helped.”

Roy’s mouth twitched in a smile. “Hey, I have my moments.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note, I'm still in the process of rolling out the characters in the story. Expect some mini-surprises, I guess? :P
> 
> Notes on 4x10:   
> \- Emotionally. Compromised. So. Much. Pain.  
> \- Well, we knew she was going to be paralyzed. Here's hoping she manages to invent some crazy tech by the end of S4. I NEED her to be walking down that aisle during the wedding.  
> \- My theory that Laurel dies is still going strong...  
> \- Say what you will about Anarky (ISTG if he starts having a crush on Thea she really needs to rethink her life choices), but those blackbird-related burns were legit my favorite thing about him. Good choice not killing him off. He's pretty awesome. (Now I'm wondering if the writer who gave him the lines was cackling through the writing, because I definitely would have been)  
> \- Every time I think about that hospital scene between Olicity, I legit can't see through my tears. *incoherent sobbing* WHYYYYYY  
> \- Alex...is sketchy. I'm just putting that out there. Where's ROOOOOOY.


	4. The Shadow

“Two sets of numbers,” said Alex, pointing at the chart pinned to a whiteboard. “Left — if we keep on going as per usual. Right — if we capitalize on the Justice Day press storm. Now, even if we pretend that you don’t pay me to give you professional advice on your campaign — right still looks higher than the left.”

Oliver was unfazed. “Technically,” he said, “my sister pays you.”

“Ollie,” Thea said, from the couch in the corner. “Alex is being serious.”

“So am I,” Oliver answered. “I know what the analysts are saying, but I’m not going to use a day meant to celebrate justice as some kind of political sideshow. I don’t care what Mayor Castle — or that guy on Channel 4 — says about it. Justice Day isn’t about Oliver Queen’s campaign —”

“—oh good, you’re referring to yourself in third person—” Thea muttered.

“— it’s about the Justice League and the people who believe in it,” Oliver finished, with a warning look in his sister’s direction. “I’m sorry, Alex, but I don’t see myself changing my mind.”

Thea rearranged the pile of documents she’d been looking through and got to her feet with a smile — which should have been a promise of sibling support, except Oliver recognized it as an uncanny duplicate of his mother’s _Let’s Not Fight in Front of Guests_ face.

“Alex, could you give me and my brother a minute, please?” Thea asked. “Thanks.”

Alex nodded and gathered up his clipboard. “No problem — I gotta call the head office anyway. We can talk about this later.”

Neither of the Queen siblings moved until the door closed quietly behind him.

Oliver found himself smiling in spite of the situation. “You and mom have the exact same expression when you’re about to tell me off.”

Thea snorted. “Well, I only learn from the best,” she said, pulling a chair around to sit in front of Oliver. “What gives, big brother? You hired my company to help manage your campaign, and we can’t exactly do that if you ignore our advice.”

“I hired the Dearden Group because they’re the best at what they do,” Oliver clarified. “But it’s still my campaign, and I’m not comfortable with making a spectacle out of a day that should be about something bigger and better.”

“What’s wrong with taking the chance — the well-deserved chance, by the way — to remind the city where you stand in its legacy? Starling City’s _famous_ for being the place where an ordinary man actually stood up and _did_ something to save it, instead of just talking about it in front of a bunch of cameras.”

Oliver looked his sister in the eye. “Because I didn’t do it for the fame. I did it to make my city a better place, and to right dad’s wrongs. That’s enough for me.”

Thea leaned her chin on her hand, twisting their mother’s engagement ring around and around her finger as she did when she was thinking.

“You know, sometimes I forget that you’re not as cynical as you look,” she said, lightly. “Deep down, you’re just a big old romantic.”

Oliver chose to see it as a compliment. “Does that mean you’re with me, Speedy?”

“Unfortunately yes,” Thea sighed. “I’ll go tell Alex, and you —”

There was a knock on the door, and Alex stuck his head inside the room. “Sorry to interrupt, but you have a visitor, Mr. Queen,” he said.

Thea rapped Oliver on the elbow with a file. “Here’s hoping it’s someone who can talk some sense into you.”

“Funny.” Oliver stood up and buttoned his jacket. “Who is it?”

“It’s your wife,” Alex said, before adding unnecessarily, “Mrs. Queen.”

Oliver glanced at his sister, who folded her arms. “What did you do this time?” she asked.

* * *

“What’s this?” Felicity asked, holding up the flash drive Sin had dropped off at her office. “And by that, I mean: what the actual _frack_ is this?”

Oliver made sure the door to his office was shut before turning to face his wife. “ _Hi_ , and nice to see you too, Felicity,” he said.

Felicity waved her hand carelessly, nearly knocking over a lamp with her sleeve. “You know I meant all that. Just unspoken. Karmically _IOU_ -ed. But don’t try to change the subject, Oliver Jonas Queen.” She showed him the drive again. “Is this some kind of play to make me forget the thing we’re not doing until you talk to Barry? Because if so — good one, and low, _low_ blow. You _know_ how much I hate mysteries, and that I’m going to work and work and work at this until I crack the metaphorical nut, and once I do your sex life is going to be polar, and by that, I mean — back to the _ice age_.”

All this, she expelled at top speed (having rehearsed it the whole car ride over) and with minimal oxygen intake (bad idea)…which left her a little winded.

After seven years (maybe six) of marriage, Oliver knew when to reach for a calming beverage during-slash-after one of her rants. Looking thoroughly unruffled, he reached for the carafe behind his desk and poured her a glass of water. “May I speak?” he asked.

Felicity had gulped down half the glass before he was even finished. “If you must,” she managed.

“There was a code-66 last night at Kord Industries. The cameras in their warehouse went down, which I thought was strange, considering what you’d told me about their company’s security overhaul —”

“How did you remember that?” Felicity interrupted.

“—because I find it very attractive when you talk about technology, but that’s beside the point,” Oliver said. “I mentioned to Sin that you might like to take a look at it when you were on duty tonight at the Watchtower, but I guess she must have dropped the flash drive off at QI instead. That’s all. I’m not trying to trick you, I swear. I don’t have it in me, and you know that.”

Felicity squinted at him over the rim of her glass, trying to gauge whether he was lying. It was pointless, since there was probably a bigger chance of flying pigs than Oliver successfully managing to pull off a lie, which made him just about the only person in politics who _didn’t_ actively fib through their teeth.

She put the glass down and stuck her hand out in apology. The corner of Oliver’s mouth lifted a little and he took it immediately, lacing his fingers through hers. “Sorry,” she said, stroking his palm with her thumb. “Work’s just been…insane. Bruce and I already know we’re going to kill the joint deal with LexCorp, but I still need to keep Luthor on the line for a couple more weeks until we figure out what he’s planning…and I’m not good at the corporate poker face. When the drive came in I thought it was a chance to freak out on somebody, which unfortunately happened to be you…husband dearest, _mi amore_ , insert-phrase-of-affection-here?”

Oliver did the last thing she’d been expecting, especially given the size and abruptness of her not-so-mini freakout. He guided her to sit in his desk chair — itself an eighth wonder of the world, complete with a plush leather seat and ergonomic back support — and began to rub her shoulders.

“I know what we’re not doing,” he said, “but this is still okay, right?”

Felicity practically purred her response, because Oliver was a _saint_ when it came to the back rub. It wasn’t on the campaign literature, but if every voter got their back and shoulders rubbed by Oliver Queen (in a totally _non-sex-worker_ way, of course), they’d push for immediate canonization.

“ _God_ , that’s amazing,” Felicity said, and cracked one eye. “Are the blinds closed? I’m too relaxed to care, but it might be good to avoid an audience after what happened last time.”

“They’re closed,” Oliver confirmed, his breath tickling her ear in a highly distracting way. “I remember what happened last time.”

Felicity laughed. “Of course you do, you perv. A-plus reflexes, by the way. You got my underwear in your desk drawer like _that_ when Alex walked in,” she said, snapping her fingers for emphasis.

Oliver kissed the side of her head. “You were saying about the flash drive?”

Felicity sighed. “Urgh — too — comfy — to — move.”

“ _Felicity_ ,” Oliver said.

She opened her eyes and pulled his keyboard over. “Hold on to that ridiculously chiseled jaw. You’re about to see something.”

* * *

“I don’t get it,” Oliver said, after the second time. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

Felicity paused the clip. “Exactly,” she said, over her shoulder. “I’ve scrubbed the footage to within an inch of its life, run about three _hundred_ de-interlace protocols, not to mention more sharpening than an actual knife factory —”

“— honey, you’re hitting the keys —”

Felicity shushed him with a finger. “And I still can’t get anything more than this blacked out _nothing_!”

They both watched the footage loop through from start to end, beginning with an innocuous view of a warehouse interior, finishing with a sudden, opaque _darkness_ , in every sense of the word.

Felicity kicked her chair into a slow, ponderous swivel. “I hate mysteries.”

“So let’s review what we _do_ know,” Oliver suggested, his expression thoughtful. “The cameras go dark for three minutes, and we know that because the time-stamp never stops through the whole thing.”

“Right, which means that it wasn’t the tech,” Felicity added. “Something could have happened in the warehouse. The lights could have been shorted on purpose. No light, nothing to record.”

Felicity spun back towards the computers. “And _if_ there was an electrical failure, there should be something in the footage before the lens went dark,” she said, typing rapidly.

Oliver observed her progress with some worry. “Felicity, my office computer isn’t designed to handle forensic video analysis.”

Felicity laughed through her nose. “That’s cute. I upgrade the computers at any location I see myself spending a lot of time in, and your campaign office is number… _three_ — I think — on that lucky list.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Oh, I never kid about computers,” she said. “Anyway, replay of the footage shows none of the lights flickering, and as far as we know there wasn’t a power outage at the factory. Which we do — because I checked the grid. Something definitely took out the lights, but we’re still blanking on the _how_.”

Oliver had been watching the endless replay without comment, but he tensed suddenly, his eyes narrowing.

“Stop,” he said abruptly. “Go back. Two seconds — right before the lights go out — can you slow down the footage?”

“You know, it hurts me that you even have to ask,” Felicity answered, isolating the chunk of footage and slowing the frame rate by three. “And… _presto_. Did you find something?”

“Something,” Oliver agreed, indicating the lower right corner of the footage. “Do you see that?”

Felicity bent closer to the screen. “I’ll blow it up,” she muttered. “It looks…like movement. Could be something falling off a shelf.”

“Or _someone_ ,” Oliver said. “Staying out of frame.”

Felicity moved her arm slowly from right to left, imitating the action of the shadow. “If our almost-burglar had a weapon, he might have been waving it around,” she said to herself. “There might be physical evidence: DNA, fibers, a particularly bad case of Big Belly Burger residue.…you still remember that crash-course I gave you in fingerprinting, right?”

Oliver made a distracted noise under his breath, which she passively construed as a _yes_.

Felicity reached out and patted Oliver’s bicep, causing him to look around like he’d just noticed he wasn’t alone. “If anyone’s in there,” she prompted, “I think we should send someone to collect any evidence our cat-burglar might have left behind — and by someone, I mean a person who’s not technically the CEO of Kord Industries’ number one competitor.”

Oliver inclined his head. “I agree — but it won’t be me.”

“This is the part where you explain why.”

“It’s too clean,” he said. “There are cameras all over that warehouse, but they don’t go down all at once. They go down in sequence. Like they’re… _following_ whoever it is through the warehouse. That’s not normal.”

“You think we shouldn’t send someone in there?” Felicity asked.

“No, I think we should,” he said. “But we deal with normal — relatively speaking, anyway. I think we should send someone who’s best at dealing with _not_ …normal.”

“Oh.” Felicity rolled backwards in the chair until she touched the wall. “You don't mean…”

“I do.” Oliver was already reaching for his phone. “Let’s hope he’s up for a slight change in his schedule.”

* * *

“This had better be good, mate,” said Constantine. “Because up until two hours ago, I was chatting up a very pretty girl in a less-than-pretty bar — and now I’m standing in the pissing rain with some computer boy who has no idea how to handle his toys.”

Diggle put his hand over the mic. “So…he sounds happy.”

Felicity snapped off the end of a sour straw she’d appropriated from Curtis’s snack drawer. “Happy or not, that accent’s still a _very_ specific kind of yummy,” she muttered.

She’d overestimated how loud the rain could be, since Oliver cleared his throat from the other side of the comms, while Diggle came down with a sudden coughing fit that sounded suspiciously close to laughter.

“I mean — Thea’s words, not mine,” Felicity said, hunting for another sour straw. “Maybe a little bit. What? He sounds like the Doctor.”

“Minus the police box, and the glowing screwdriver, and the —”

“—is that all you got from the _Doctor Who_ re-runs I made you watch?” Felicity said indignantly. “That he’s some kind of weirdo running around space and time with an LED household tool?”

“I’m in enough trouble with you as it is,” Oliver said. “Do you really want me to answer honestly?”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Diggle said, with an undercurrent of _not now, you two_. “Kord Industries is going to be on their toes after the blackout. Let’s do this quick.”

“You know, when I told you over coffee that I wanted a little more excitement from my day job, I _was not_ expecting anyone to call me on it,” Curtis said. “And on the pain of stating the obvious, is there a particular reason why we’re not asking them to let us in? I mean — we’re the Justice League. We’re the good guys.”

“Which is exactly why we don't want anyone knowing that we’re looking into the incident,” Oliver said. “We don’t know who’s watching.”

Constantine either snorted, or sloshed through a very large puddle. “That’s all very well and good, but is there any particular reason that this couldn’t wait until I was actually on duty?” he asked.

“So we can catch it,” Curtis interjected, sounding remarkably chipper despite the grumpy man in green leather, his irritable English companion and the heavy rain.

Constantine sounded distinctly unimpressed. “You’ll have to be more specific, mate. I’m catching a lot of things, standing on a rooftop in the bleeding rain.”

“It’s Professor Faust’s theory of the occult. The science isn’t completely sound, but research suggests that what most people call magic is really just an elevated manifestation of electromagnetic radiation. Now, the levels degrade on a strict logarithmic scale by the hour, so if we take time as _t_ and EMR levels as _e_ —”

“I hate to burst your bubble, computer boy, but magic isn’t something you calculate. It’s something you _feel_ , deep in your bones,” Constantine said, which would have been his usual shade of cryptic, had he _not_ decided to add: “Is there no way to light a bloody cigarette in this weather?”

“I think I saw that bumper sticker in London,” Felicity commented, just as Oliver added (in a long-suffering kind of way): “You can’t smoke in the warehouse, John.”

“Right,” Felicity said, scratching her nose. “That too.”

“I’ll do my level best, but only for you, love,” said Constantine. “Ah, a door.”

Oliver exhaled a long, slow growl of exasperation. “We should have called Zatanna.”

Diggle grunted his assent.

“Curtis,” Felicity said. “You ready?”

There was the distinct sound of fumbling on the other end. “The EMR detector is… _whoops…_ ready to go. So how are we doing this?”

Felicity turned her attention over to the left monitor. “Okay, I just borrowed Kord Industries’ security feeds. Once I switch their sensor alarms to dummy mode, you have eight minutes to get in and out through the skylight, starting…”

She pressed _Execute_.

“Now.”

* * *

Oliver slid down the grappling cable and landed on the bare, dusty concrete. Constantine was already on the ground, and Curtis followed two seconds later, surprisingly graceful given the heavy equipment he was carrying.

“Nice landing,” Oliver said.

“I go climbing with my husband a lot,” Curtis explained, checking the calibration on the sensor. “Paul likes it — funny story — he used to say that girls never stood a chance with him because of how much he liked roc…I’m over-sharing again, aren’t I?”

“Stopped listening as soon as you said _I_ ,” Constantine said, examining a row of boxes stacked on the far shelf.

Curtis stuck his hand in the air. “I’m picking up abnormal levels of EMR,” he announced. “Something definitely happened here.”

“We need to work fast.” Oliver turned in a circle, trying to estimate where the shadow would have come from, given the relative position of the cameras. “Curtis, can you—?”

“No need, mate.” Constantine was crouched in the corner, his bare hand on the wall. There was a glint in his eye and something sharp and very nearly wicked in his smile, and he drew his fingertips across the wall as tenderly as if it were bare skin, whispering formless words in a language that sounded like sharpened steel.

“It’s magic, all right, and it’s —”

Constantine flinched, jerking his hand back as if he’d been bitten. Oliver took a wary step forward, ready to pull him back if he needed to — even though he had no idea why. They’d known each other for a while — since the island — and he’d seen Constantine work up close, seen the effect of magic on his friend. The world was a stranger place than people were comfortable with believing, and nothing personified that more than John Constantine. Mysteries delighted him, and the promise of a challenge only made the strange light in his eyes dance like hellfire.

Oliver licked his lips, a nervous tic, because they were playing a dangerous game, and he was just starting to realize how much.

“Are you hearing voices?” Curtis asked, sounding unnerved.

“Apart from the usual ones at the back of my mind? No,” Constantine answered, his voice soft. “ _No_. There’s only one voice here — and it’s old. Far, far older than I am. This one uses the darkness, and it’s very good. Seamless, malleable darkness. Better than any trickster I’ve seen in my day. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we were dealing with Shadow herself.”

“But you’re not saying that,” Oliver said.

Constantine shook his head, a hand hovering in front of the wall. “I call myself a master of the dark arts,” he said, “but this one’s mastered the dark itself. _The_ darkness. It can come and go as it pleases, make a door as long as there’s a shadow. It could have stolen anything it wanted in this place, and no wall, no vault door, would have made the smallest difference.”

“So this was…a test?” Curtis asked.

“A trial for them,” Constantine agreed. “A warning shot for us.”

“Next time — it’s for real,” Oliver guessed. “What did it want?”

“I suppose if you come up with a way to catch a shadow, you can ask it all you want,” Constantine said, and straightened up with his usual nonchalant grace. “But for now — I haven’t a bloody clue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constantine's just fun to have around the team, British sarcasm and all that :D   
> BTW, I promise I'm going somewhere with this mystery (if it can even be called that).


	5. Up, Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halloooooooo. Hope everyone's had a good week. Work's starting to pile up at school so no promises about the next update, but I'll give it my best shot :)

Friday night dinners at the Queen mansion had attained an almost ritual-like status. The children would be playing (very noisily) in the living room under Raisa’s watchful eye, the table would be somewhat set for dinner, and the kitchen would be adults-only territory. Oliver would always be cooking, assisted in varying degrees by his best friend (depending on the complexity of the recipe), while Lyla and Felicity would inevitably form a makeshift assembly line for food prep and miscellaneous tasks — like rolling forks and knives into napkin squares — while the guys sweated over by the stove.

The going was almost always slow, because US senator, a hacker and two superheroes could generate a surprising amount of shop talk over an assembly line of cutlery and napkins. Plus red wine — always red wine.

“A shadow?” Lyla repeated. “You’ve made some very strange requests over the years, but how to catch a shadow has got to be the craziest.”

Felicity waved a half-eaten string bean at her. “Hold up,” she said. “Where cray-cray’s concerned, I’m still holding first place.”

“Interesting place to stake your territory,” Oliver remarked, leaning over to check on the food. “Felicity, honey, I thought we agreed to hold off on the eating until all the food made it to the table. Remember that? Because we have guests?”

Felicity coughed and reached for her glass of wine. “Just giving it a test-run. Y’know, in case it needs…salt.”

“Mm — I think Johnny was telling me about that,” Lyla said, utterly straight-faced. “Rule number one of having people over for dinner, right?”

Diggle nodded along. “First thing they put in the handbook,” he agreed.

Even with a pair of oven mitts and a scalding-hot tray of roast chicken in his hands, Oliver could still pull a decent _intimidation_ mode. “Traitors,” he said, and everyone laughed.

Felicity kissed his cheek and reached for the wine bottle. “This is why we mess with you,” she said, refilling everyone’s glasses. “So serious all the time.”

“Speaking of serious,” Lyla said. “Oliver — I have a few senators who want to make an appearance at the Justice Museum gala next weekend. What should I tell them?”

Oliver pursed his lips.

“Oh, we don’t mention _Justice Day_ and _campaign_ in the same sentence,” Felicity translated. “Apparently it’s disrespectful.”

“You know what I think about that,” Lyla said evenly, between a sip of wine. “But we’ll have to discuss it at some point. They’re pretty big names in the playing field, and they want to wish you luck on your campaign.”

“In front of cameras,” Diggle added. “How many of them are up for re-election, again?”

“ _Johnny_ ,” Lyla said, reading his tone. “It’s the game we have to play when we sign up for politics. I know you don’t like it, but it is what it is.”

Felicity was watching Oliver. Even though he hadn’t said much, as soon as he did the patented Shoulder Thing (partway between a stretch and a roll of his neck), she slipped off her chair to stand by him, and ran her knuckles up the bumps of his spine in a soothing approximation of a mini-massage.

“What I want to know is — when did _we_ start calling it the Justice Museum?” Felicity asked. “I know the Watchtower is anything below G-level — which, if you think about it, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense — but I was sure Cisco would have come up with a better name for the upstairs stuff by now.”

It worked, insofar as changing the subject was concerned. Oliver kissed the side of her head and gave her waist a grateful squeeze. “Names aren’t really my thing,” he said lightly. “But we could ask Team Flash ourselves when they’re in town next week.”

“ _All_ of Team Flash?” Diggle queried, ever the big brother to Oliver.

Oliver inclined his head, like the leading question was a more than fair point to make. “ _All_ of Team Flash,” he confirmed. “I promise. It’s past time Barry and I put all of this behind us.”

“Cheers to that,” Lyla said, raising her glass. “To friends and family.”

“To friends and family,” they echoed.

“And the end of the ice age,” Felicity whispered in Oliver’s ear, and felt him smile.

* * *

Night had fallen over the mansion, and the warm glow from the patio lights stretched long across the dewy grass. One of Felicity’s favorite things about the summer were the lazy dinners on the stone-paved patio, wine and laughter and talk under a canopy of swaying lanterns, listening to a soft evening wind whispering through the garden.

It was quiet now, especially since the main source of the perpetual commotion had conked out for the evening. It never ceased to amaze Felicity how quickly under-sevens could go from pre-dinner shrieking and dancing in front of the TV to nodding off in the bench swing, completely oblivious to the adults still talking at the table. Tonight was no exception. The combination of good food and ostentatious nighttime had caused all but one of the children in the group to drift off, in every sense of the word.

Hazel, Tommy, and Andrea were all asleep on the swing, spare blankets tucked up to their chin, eyes closed, mouths wide open. Sara, on the other hand, had inherited her parents’ stubbornness and seemed determined to be a part of the grownups’ conversation circle at her advanced age of nine. But chocolate cake and milk for dessert had exerted their soporific effect on her, and she was sitting at the table with her head on her arms, eyelashes sweeping lower and lower with each blink.

“You sure you don’t want to climb in, sweetie?” Felicity asked, stroking Sara’s halo of cloud-like curls. “There’s still room on the swing.”

Sara shook her head, even though it was resting heavily on her arms. “I’m not sleepy,” she insisted. “I wanna hear you guys talk.”

“I got this,” Diggle said, and scooped his daughter up as easily as he would a puppy. “Come on, princess.”

Lyla shifted cushions on Diggle’s wicker chair to make room for Sara, who settled unprotestingly with her head in the curve of his arm. The air was a little cooler these days, the balmy August warmth gradually giving way to the slight briskness of September, and Felicity slipped onto Oliver’s lap with a glass of wine, unabashedly making use of his dependable warmth.

They were _way_ past the point where Oliver questioned the use of his lap despite the abundance of alternative seating, but it was standard form for him to put up a mild form of protest anyway. “Six other chairs,” he murmured, which would have been more convincing if he hadn’t also adjusted his position to make the choice of seat more comfortable.

“None of them have a natural heating function,” Felicity whispered back.

“Cold?” he asked, eyeing the way she’d pulled the sleeves of her cardigan past her wrists.

Felicity huddled closer to him, her arms around his neck. “Shh. Denial postpones flu season and runny noses.”

Diggle chuckled. “Not sure it works that way, Felicity.”

“I’m not even sure what I’m saying — the struggle against the food coma is real,” she said, glancing at their empty dishes. “I think between my plate and the kids’ leftovers — suffice it to say I am _stuffed_. Great dinner, hun.”

“Amen to that,” Lyla said. “Thank you for hosting.”

Oliver smiled, gently chafing Felicity’s thigh. “Happy to.”

“How’s that investigation into LexCorp going, Felicity?” Diggle asked. “Any help from the Bat?”

“Still monitoring DMR levels around Starling,” Felicity said. “No luck yet. I don’t know about you guys, but I hate it when bad guys don’t tell me their sketchy evil plans.”

“Your instincts aren’t wrong. I’d watch Lex Luthor,” Lyla said warningly. “Senator Gordon just received an anonymous campaign donation, and he’s about to vote on a defense bill that’ll change whether a few government contracts go forward.”

“A CEO with money to burn and a nonexistent sense of ethics?” Diggle said. “Sounds _very_ new.”

“ _Ouch_ ,” Felicity protested. “Not all CEOs are bad. Sure, some of us take particle accelerators off the books and try to modify them for sketchy-who-knows-what, but — y’know — that’s the exception, not the rule.”

“Some of them just sign over their company to a woman working with a psychopathic murderer,” Oliver added helpfully. “Let’s not forget that.”

“Didn’t Ray Palmer blow up the top floor of his office?” Lyla asked.

Felicity snapped her fingers. “ _Right_ — he was experimenting on his suit,” she said, and made a face. “Wow, superheroes really do _not_ make great CEOs, do they?”

Oliver turned his head into her hair for a soft kiss. “Too much on our minds,” he said softly.

Sitting in his lap meant Felicity had a pretty good idea about what was on his mind, and it was the kind of thing _not_ meant for polite company.

But no one ever said she wasn’t good at driving the point home.

“We should probably check with Cisco about our magic-meta,” Felicity said, not-so-subtly shifting her position further up Oliver’s legs. “Just to be…thorough.”

Oliver’s hand tensed on her knee, and he shot her a warning look out the corner of his eye. Felicity just looked innocently back, swirling the wine in her glass.

“A _shadow_ ,” Diggle said, shaking his head. “Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder.”

“Oh, I always leave room for extra _oh-frack_ moments,” Felicity said, with a wave of her hand (and an extra wiggle of her hips). “Keeps things interesting.”

“We know the meta’s pattern of behavior,” Oliver said, in a surprisingly normal tone of voice, given his friction-related problem. “Worst-case scenario — I think we could set a trap ourselves.”

“No guarantee that our shady little problem’s going to take the bait,” Felicity said. “A burglar that walks through walls and doesn’t steal anything from one of the best tech companies in the world? Not to toot someone else’s horn, but a prototype could have bought them — _it_ — I’m losing track here — a cozy little place in the Caymans.”

There was a pause, in which everyone turned to look at her with varying degrees of speculation.

“What?” Felicity said. “I go to conventions, I meet people, they tell me things — a little bit of trivia never hurt anyone.”

Diggle shared an amused look with Oliver. “Mm-hm,” he said.

“Maybe you should be looking into companies like Kord Industries,” Lyla said. “Hi-tech, high-security, off-site warehouse storage. But magic or not, it sounds like you’ll be dealing with a different kind of containment issue once you catch the guy. CADMUS might know something, but…”

Felicity felt like she spoke (and acted) for most people at the table when she reached for the wine bottle. “No one, and I do mean _no one_ ,” she stressed, “wants to go anywhere near Amanda Waller and her anti-metahuman task force.”

“Not unless you want her spinning one of her mind games on you,” Diggle agreed. “If Amanda’s in — I’m out.”

They clinked glasses, utterly in agreement.

“Amanda’s definitely an option,” Oliver said. “But let’s see what we can work up by ourselves.”

“By _we_ , you mean John Constantine,” Lyla commented. “I still have that business card he gave me. _Exorcist, Demonologist, and Master_ —”

“— _of the Dark Arts?_ ” Diggle finished. “Yeah. And I thought _we_ had one hell of an introduction.”

Felicity frowned. “I _think_ he’s getting that changed,” she said. “To… _Dabbler in the Dark Arts_.”

Oliver leaned forward to refill their glasses. “Much better,” he deadpanned, and everyone laughed.

A comfortable silence settled around the group again. The lantern flames winked a little in the breeze and a bird cried somewhere in the night. Felicity stroked Oliver’s hair with the side of her hand, listening to the soft flutter of their children sleeping in the swing.

Sara stretched a little in her doze, like a cat, and Diggle smiled over her head at Lyla. There was more love and pride in that single look than words could ever describe, and Felicity recognized it from the first day Oliver laid eyes on his children, like all the legacies in the world were nothing compared to what they were building with their family.

“Do you ever think about hanging it up?” she whispered, her eyes on Sara’s sleeping face. “Letting someone else take up the fight?”

Diggle smoothed his broad palm across the slant of his daughter’s cheek. “Sometimes,” he answered. “But not yet.”

Oliver nodded slowly. “But not yet,” he echoed.

* * *

Oliver was nodding off by the time Felicity got out of the shower, spearminty-fresh and thoroughly blow-dried. Which would have been fine, except that he was facedown on her side of the bed.

Felicity glanced at the clock on their nightstand and prodded him in the (shirt-free) shoulder. “Well,” she said. “I think it’s safe to say we’re officially old people. Eleven-thirty and we’re already ready to conk out? This used to be lunchtime for us.”

The corner of Oliver’s mouth lifted in a smile and he rolled over to make room for her, if only to use her stomach as an alternate pillow. “You smell nice,” he said, turning his face into her shirt.

Felicity stroked his hair. “Long day?”

“Long day,” he agreed. “Met the Fire Department chief…and the Deputy Commissioner…and we were running through debate answers…”

Felicity winced on his behalf. “ _Yeesh_. Talking in front of people.”

Oliver chuckled into her shirt. “There’s a pretty good chance I might actually have to _think_ before I speak.”

“Not to up your suicide risk, but tomorrow’s the photoshoot for the _Starling Journal_ — which as your wife and mother of your children I have _generously_ agreed to participate in, free of charge,” Felicity reminded him.

Oliver made a muffled noise that might have been a groan. “I hate photoshoots.”

“I’m sure these cheekbones make it hard for you,” Felicity said, patting what part of his unfairly sculpted face she could reach. “How do you _survive_ with the adversity?”

“I’d say drugs, but I’ve been told I’m not allowed to joke about narcotics,” he mumbled.

Felicity laughed and cuddled Oliver close again. She traced the strong upward slant of his cheekbones with her knuckles, checking idly for signs of baldness. None yet (phew), but there were a few gray hairs at the sides of his head and beard, dark gold turned to darker silver.

“Did you mean it?” she asked quietly. “The stuff about retiring — did you really mean it?”

Oliver shifted to look at her, his gaze perfectly level. “Have I thought about it?”

Felicity nodded. “Hanging up the hood. Calling it a day. Retiring to a desk job — i.e. what normal people do.” She paused, reconsidering their extensive repertoire of the Weird and Crazy variety. “When I say _normal_ …I mean _normal_ -ish. Normal-adjacent.”

Oliver smiled again. “You’re worried about me.”

“Well…yeah. For one thing, it’s murder on the knees,” Felicity said, widening her eyes for emphasis. “Barrel-rolling off rooftops and kicking down doors, or whatever it is you superheroes do out in the field.”

“You make me take calcium for that.”

“Glucosamine,” she corrected. “Calcium’s what I grind up and put into your coffee when you’re not looking.”

Oliver nuzzled into her stomach with a faint growl, making her laugh. “Sneaky.”

As much as Felicity adored moments of Oliver being cute, the not-at-all-answer wasn’t enough to stop the thoughts from whirring inside her skull.

Because — well — it was her.

And _retirement_.

Felicity didn’t quite know what to make of that, and she understood if Oliver didn’t either.

“You’re about to ask another question,” Oliver guessed, propping himself up on his elbow. “Your eyebrows are doing that crinkly thing.”

Felicity forced a smile and rubbed her forehead. “Just…wondering. I’m past the big _3-0_ , and pretty soon you’ll be at the age when guys buy Ferraris and swap out their old, wrinkly wives —”

Oliver sat upright, looking indignant. “You don’t actually think —”

He never got to finish his sentence, because Felicity snatched a pillow and held it up as a threatening reminder as to the consequences of interrupting her.

“And to preface this, no one’s more against domestic boredom than I am,” she continued, “and this is _completely_ hypothetical. And —”

“— how about I just assume from now on that there’s always an _and_?”

“ _And_ ,” Felicity repeated, whacking him with the pillow to emphasize her point, “I love you, no matter what.”

Oliver caught the corner of the pillow and pulled her a little closer. “I love you too,” he said. “So ask me.”

“Have you? Have you actually thought about retiring?”

Felicity watched Oliver’s face carefully, just in case he decided to go all closed-off and cryptic on her at the mention of retirement.

But he didn’t.

“C’mere,” he said, opening his arms.

Felicity had her suspicions, and she wasn’t shy about voicing them. “If this is some Oliver-patented way to avoid the question, it’s not going to work, you know,” she said, but lay back next to him anyway.

Oliver’s arm was a solid, comforting weight around her waist, and his stubble tickled her temple when he kissed it. “It’s not,” he whispered, stroking the hair back from her forehead. “And in answer to your question — I _have_ thought about it. I’ve thought about a lot of things, and one of them is the fact that I can’t be the Green Arrow forever.”

“Follow-up question,” Felicity said, and felt the tremors in Oliver’s chest when he laughed. “Have you ever thought about handing the bow off to someone else? Passing it on…within the family?”

Oliver frowned. “I think Tommy and Hazel are a little young to be playing superhero.”

Felicity poked him in the chest. “Not what I meant, and BTW, we’ll be having a discussion about that mini archery target I found in the woods. _And_ the shish-kabobed Teletubby.”

“Hazel was having nightmares about that thing, I brought Betadine spray —”

“Those things are monsters,” she agreed. “But that’s not what I meant. Actually — not _who_ I meant.”

Felicity knew it was a hypothetical, a stretch of a hypothetical, but what was marriage and long-term commitment for, if not to ask each other (okay, fine, mostly Oliver) questions in comfy pajamas before bed?

“I mean, Connor already knows how to judo-flip his uncle Roy,” she said. “And he’s working on beating Dig — once he figures out how to win against grapefruit-sized biceps. You didn’t just show him how to throw a punch — you taught him something- _itsu_ and that thing where you grab someone’s thumb so they can’t move their hand.”

“I did teach him that,” Oliver said, staring at their interlaced fingers. “But no. I don’t want that life for Connor — I never did. I taught him how to defend himself because it was the right thing to do, not because I want him to follow in my footsteps.”

“Some pretty honorable footsteps,” she said gently. “Green, arrow-y, superhero-y footsteps.”

Oliver chuckled and pressed a kiss into her knuckles. “Connor will do whatever he wants to. But between you and me — I’m glad he’s just interning at the CCPD crime lab. That’s as close as I ever want him to get to the Justice League.”

“Okay,” Felicity said. “That’s all I needed to know.”

“Really?” Oliver squinted up at her with mock-wariness. “No more questions?”

That got him an elbow somewhere in the ribs, which led to a childish detour into the realm of smothered laughter and the squirmy reshuffling of positions.

Felicity tugged gently on Oliver’s earlobe. “Since you asked — I do have one more question,” she said. “What made you reconsider about the whole Barry thing? You called them _Team Flash_. You _never_ call them Team Flash. Not out loud, anyway.”

“I spoke to Roy. Well — he spoke to me. He said that I may not be the easiest person to work with,” Oliver said, shifting so that he was lying on his side. “In that…I don’t always treat the people I work with as equals.”

Felicity puffed out her breath. “Very true — very sound advice — go Roy.”

Oliver looked slightly hurt. “Ow,” he said. “What happened to not taking sides?”

“Between you and Barry, yeah,” Felicity answered. “No such policy with Team Arrow. Sitting on the fence gets boring, and you’ve seen me shout sense into you. For one thing — it actually _works_.”

Oliver inclined his head. “I like it when you have the moral high ground,” he conceded. “It suits you.”

“The moral high ground _does_ suit me, doesn’t it?” Felicity said, straight-faced.

“It does,” Oliver agreed. “But in all seriousness, I’m going to try and change that, and the first step is talking to Barry when I see him. Maybe I’ll try that thing people do with their arms when they’re happy to see each other.”

Oliver Queen joking about physical gestures of the non-chokehold kind was just about as rare as a unicorn sighting, so Felicity took the full opportunity to play along. “Sounds _vaguely_ familiar,” she said. “Maybe do that thingamajig where you hold cold drinks and stand around talking about non-work stuff. I _think_ Curtis called it small talk…?”

“Really,” Oliver said. “Can’t _wait_ to try it.”

They smiled at each other, and Oliver raised himself up on his arms. His posture was an unspoken question, one Felicity answered by turning her face towards him so their lips met, easily, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Perks of sharing a bed with someone for just about every night of a six-or-seven-year marriage? She knew the natural progression of hard-to-kick habits, and suffice it to say if things went their usual way, neither of them would be keeping their clothes on for much longer.

But Felicity loved — _loved_ — to tease-slash-torture her husband, and this was once-in-a-blue-moon-level timing. “So,” she whispered, “are you sleeping with the pillows between us, or on the floor?”

It worked, and she swore Oliver’s face — hilariously — fell a little. “Actually, I was kind of hoping…”

Felicity slipped lower onto the pillows. “Yeah?” she said, sliding her hands to Oliver’s hips as he climbed on top of her. “Are we playing that game?”

“Mm-hm.” Oliver had gone straight to kissing her throat with single-minded eagerness, teasing at the hem of her shirt and her waistband like he couldn’t quite decide which one to — for lack of a better word — unwrap first.

Felicity helped his decision by dragging his face up to hers for a kiss. It was the kind of kiss that was hungry and messy and said more about the last few days of deprivation than words ever could. She arched into him, feeling his response, and pulled back — just a few inches — very slightly hating herself.

But she loved the moral high ground, and the abstinence pact was something she felt _honor-bound_ to see through.

Because reasons.

“ _Psych_ ,” she whispered.

Oliver’s face was easily the best part of a truly sucky situation, and he dropped his head with an explosive sigh, nudging his forehead to hers. “You — _evil —_ genius.”

Felicity burst out laughing and pushed Oliver gently on the chin with her forefinger. He landed heavily onto his side of the bed with a groan, and she wriggled back down under the covers. “Sorry, hun — but I’m making a point.”

“You _made_ your point,” Oliver said in protest, proceeding to their usual sleeping position, even though Felicity didn’t have the heart to tell him that spooning would only make things worse. “ _I_ made you an amazing roast chicken.”

Felicity considered it. “Ah, but I pushed two children out of me. Eleven minutes apart, if I remember correctly,” she said. “Do I still get to play that card?”

Oliver tightened his arms around her and buried his face into her neck with a grunt (and maybe a small bite). “You always get to play that card.”

Felicity kissed him lightly on the cheek and reached for the bedside switch. “Night…”

If Oliver was still mildly disgruntled, it was nowhere to be seen in the way he settled in to sleep, his arms draped over her side and his heartbeat against her back, a wordless reassurance that they were warm and safe. “Goodnight, Felicity,” he said, and it was only a few more breaths before she heard the long, slow exhale that meant he was asleep.

But Felicity lay awake for what felt like a long time, staring at the strip of wavering moonlight that cut across the bedroom floor, listening to Oliver’s deep breaths and the little shivers and creaks of the house at night.

Seven years spearheading the Justice League and almost four as Starling’s local vigilantes were more than enough for anyone’s karmic work log, much less a mother of two trouble-making twins and full-time CEO of a (hugely successful, _tcha_ ) tech company. Eleven years to her felt like an impossibly long time, and even though she’d never considered what they did as any kind of burden, sometimes her overactive imagination made her question their luck. They’d gone from being tolerated by the SCPD, to being hunted by them, to showing their faces in front of the world and being honored on a day marked just for them.

Sometimes it felt like they were rising on a wheel, and where they were now — the crest, the high point — was as good as it was ever going to get. The thought scared her, because the logical thing, the natural thing that _had_ to follow, was the descent — and the fall.

Which meant that they were just waiting for the next big push, courtesy of Supreme Evil Incorporated, to start the wheel turning again.

They just didn’t know what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, DUUUUUUUUUUUN.
> 
> Notes on 4x11:   
> \- Emily Bett is one hell of an actress. Thank GOD she stayed on the show. Granted, the writers need to stop HURTING MY BABY but she's so amazing as Felicity so she deserves all the storylines to work with :DDD  
> \- Stephen Amell really needs to win something for playing Oliver. The tears in his eyes. THE TEARS IN HIS EYES. *incoherence*  
> \- I knew Laurel was definitely going to try and give Oliver advice, but I was genuinely surprised that it didn't suck. And my Birdie Death Theory continues chugging along...  
> \- LYLA NEEDS TO BE BACK MORE OFTEN. AND IN A NON-DEATH CAPACITY. SHE CANNOT DIE. OLIVER AND FELICITY NEED A MARRIED COUPLE TO LOOK UP TO.  
> \- I'm not happy about the way the Suicide Squad-affiliated characters are just getting picked off by the writers. Like what the hell. I know I'm in NO position to judge (*cough* beheading her *cough*), but that was HARSH. Yowza, writers.  
> \- The last scene when Felicity was burning the picture would have been a FANTASTIC time for Oliver to bring up his secret son. But no, it's going to come back and bite them in the ass. Dammit.  
> \- ROY'S BACK NEXT WEEK *celebration noises*


	6. A Rogue Pizza Situation

Photoshoots, Felicity was starting to realize, were part and parcel of being a Queen. And not the kind that involved sleazy photographers and doe-eyed Marilyns from the Midwest. The kind that involved artistic overhead lighting, minimalist setups, and the promise of being featured in a glossy news magazine’s profile on up-and-coming mayoral candidate Oliver Queen.

“You’re good to go, Mrs. Queen,” said the stylist, straightening the hem of Felicity’s dress (not hers, red, expensive, and _scratchy_ ). “Jimmy’s just running a little late from the airport — his last assignment ran long.”

“Great, thank you,” Felicity said, trying (and failing) not to hop on the spot (no mean feat, given her five-inch heels). “I’ll just…exercise my face.”

Everyone on the _Journal_ ’s staff must have seen some things on the job, because no one commented on a thirty-something-year-old blonde pacing the white backdrop with her hands on her hips, going through a variety of Greek tragedy expressions in an attempt to loosen up her facial muscles.

It really didn’t help that Oliver had been detained by a mid-morning campaign emergency, which meant she’d arrived at the studio alone and on time, a situation that did nothing to help her nerves.

Felicity worked her jaw in exaggerated chewing motions, trying to decide if the muscle twitches were a by-product of the cold (it was August), or because she was trying to debut her best psycho-killer face in front of the camera.

“Motive, murder, murder melons,” she muttered to herself, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I can do this — I was on TV — I’m a CEO — billion-dollar tech company — a camera cannot beat me…”

She snuck a glance at some of the art assistants, who were watching her warily. There were a lot of perks of not having to make up depressingly awkward stories to cover up her absences as a Justice League member, but at times, Felicity wondered if it was a good thing to have the Oracle persona (a cool, hacker goddess with a badass computer technique) associated with the verbally unfiltered, human-magnet-for-awkward side of Felicity Queen.

Damn the others for making it look cool.

“Hi,” she said, waving awkwardly. “Not losing it, I swear. Just…oh, thank frack, phone.”

She grabbed her rattling phone off the chair and swiped without even looking at the caller.

“Hel—”

A deafening whoop nearly busted right through her eardrum and temporal lobe. “T-minus one week, baby! _One week!_ ”

For a guy with (presumably) a standard amount of testosterone, Cisco Ramon could be surprisingly high-pitched. Like _give-the-Canary-Cry-a-run-for-its-money_ high.

Cisco whooped again. “ _ONE WE—_ ”

Felicity cut him off before he could finish. “ _Ow_ , Cisco,” she said, switching the phone to her other (non-ringing) ear. “Some warning before you go hypersonic would be nice.”

“Sorry, haters, can’t hear you over the sound of my reunion feels,” Cisco answered, shuffling around like he was doing his own version of the silent disco. “Oh yeah — they said we wouldn’t last — we freaking did. Take that, haters. Seven years. _Se-ven_ years. I’ve had _relationships_ shorter than that.”

Felicity frowned. “Not sure that’s really something you want to publicize. Speaking of — how are things going with Lisa? Made an honest woman out of her yet?”

“You’re obviously probing for information about my super-hot girlfriend,” Cisco said. “Unfortunately, I’m flying solo next week. The strobe light hath blinketh, and we’re on a short intermission.”

“Barry told me,” Felicity said. “Sorry Cisco, I wanted this one to work out for you. In a non-violent, totally legal way, I mean.”

“That’s what I get for dating Captain Cold’s sister, I know. But I’m still young — plenty of time to sow my wild oats. Can’t put a ring on this.”

“God, I can practically hear you weeping,” Felicity joked. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find you someone at the gala.”

“Oo — someone from the League of Shadows, _please_. I’ve relaxed my embargo on dating any Nanda Parbat-ians since they — y’know — gave up the whole assassin thing.”

Felicity laughed. “I’ll put in a good word for you with Nyssa.”

“ _Sweet_. And for that _quid_ , I give you _quo_ ,” Cisco said. “I ran your description through the system — both my Ramon Recollection and Star Labs’ records —”

“Did you find anything?”

“Squat for reported meta cases, so I went down to see Joe at CCPD. I asked him if there were any reports of total blackouts during B&Es that didn’t get confirmed meta status, and he pulled out — hand to God — _an Excel file_ —”

“ _Cisco_.”

“Sorry — got sidetracked. Anyway, the dinosaur method gave us a couple of cases. Complete darkness, CCTV and everything. The only eyewitness was a night shift guy, and get this — he swore he heard someone moving around when everything went pre-dawn of time, but no one really took him seriously because he had a history of getting funky with shrooms, and I mean the _real_ , hippie stuff. You could probably have gotten high off his pee sample —”

“So there _is_ a meta,” Felicity said. “Any idea what this guy — or girl — targets?”

“The _Shade_ — you’re welcome for the great name — is real good at fencing. Never keeps anything as a souvenir. The only reason CCPD managed to track down the stuff was because the Shade — you’re welcome times two — dropped them like hot potatoes. The Marnier diamond, the Crystal Ball painting…they all got picked up after the mob bought them. I mean, good for our meta, but —”

“—not so good for us,” Felicity said, with a sigh. “Dammit. How hard is it to find a bad guy who likes to keep trophies?”

“I know,” Cisco agreed. “Sucks when they get smarter. Case in point, the Shade used an off-site handover and got paid in cash — mob guys never got a look, period.”

Felicity’s urge to yank on the immaculate curls they’d styled her hair into was getting dangerously strong. “Okay, so we have half a _what_ , part of a _who_ , and none of the _how_ ,” she said, bracing her forehead. “Not great, but the meta hasn’t stolen anything from Starling yet. Gives us time to think about how to stop it.”

“I could try Vibing for the Shade’s next move,” Cisco said. “Any excuse to put on a pair of cool shades and go to sleep at work.”

“Thanks Cisco, I’ll keep working on containment ideas with Curtis and Constantine. You sure you guys don’t need a ride from Central City? I could send QI’s private jet over to pick you up.”

“I mean, you know I _never_ say no to free first class rides…”

Felicity laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes. Any signs of thaw on the Barry front?”

“I know you’re kidding about the thaw, but you should know that at the rate Barry’s molecules vibrate, it’d take an illegal crapton of liquid nitrogen to get his body even _somewhere_ close to icy.”

“Or — you know — a cold gun,” Felicity pointed out.

Cisco made a pained noise. “Still fresh,” he groaned. “And no, Barry doesn’t mention Oliver much — he just spills or breaks whatever he’s holding when someone else does. He broke my BB-8 mug.”

“ _Frack_ ,” Felicity sighed.

“I _know_. It was limited edition, and I had to fight a 12-year-old chess prodigy on eBay to get it —”

“Not that, Cisco,” she said, looking around at the sound of a door slamming. “Just…”

Oliver — newly arrived and _very_ late — was halfway across the room, having a conversation with Alex and Thea. It was actually unfair how the man could run straight from his campaign office and still look ready for a photoshoot.

_Pesky genetics._

“This might just be my awesome Vibe powers, but are you about to spill a juicy secret?”

Felicity wasn’t sure if the secret strictly qualified as _juicy_ , though it definitely was frustrating. The kind of frustrating that contributed to her not being able to stand in one spot or get _anywhere_ near their washing machine.

“I may or may not have slapped down a card I’m starting to regret and suffice it to say — the sooner Barry and Oliver make up, the happier I’ll be.”

Cisco sounded intrigued. “What did you bet?”

“I’m not comfortable discussing the details,” Felicity said, through her hands.

“ _Kinky_.” Cisco was most definitely grinning. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry. Once they’re in the same room, it’ll be like the movies. Barry smiles. Oliver smiles. The whole fight was just stupid. They start to walk, and then they —”

“—kiss?” Felicity suggested, highly amused at the mental image. “You make it sound like they’re in love.”

“Felicity, you may be Oliver’s true love, but what he has with Barry is pretty darn special too. _Believe_ you me, this whole Kaznia thing is gonna blow right out the window when they see each other.”

Felicity shot a furtive glance at Oliver’s back. “I _cannot_ stress how much I need this thing to blow over,” she muttered. “Give Barry a hug for me, okay?”

“I’m insulted you even need to ask,” Cisco said. “BTW, I whipped up some Justice Day costumes for Tommy and Hazel. Plenty of choices, some might even say…enough for a mini-superhero calendar?”

Felicity snorted at the thought of Oliver’s expression if she ever asked him. “I’ll run it by Mr. Grumpy-pants. But thanks, Cisco, and thanks for taking care of Connor, by the way. I know it’s a little awkward, him interning at the crime lab when his dad is man-sulking on his boss, but —”

“ _Right_ ,” Cisco said, sounding weirdly high-pitched again. “The crime lab. Connor. Interning. Oliver — dad. Barry — boss-man. What? Mac and cheese pizza? I’ll be right there!”

“Cisco, are you having a stroke?” Felicity asked. “Quick — what’s ten times ten? Are your fingers going numb?”

“Nope, I’m not having — or _doing_ — anything. Say what? The pizza’s running away? Sorry, Felicity, gotta go. Rogue pizza situation. See you next week, love you, bye!”

“Did you just say —?”

Cue fake static noises by Cisco and the eventual hang-up. Felicity stared at her phone screen, nonplussed, and she was still staring when Oliver came over.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “Everything okay? You look like someone asked you what the square root of 841 is.”

“I know you’re kidding, but it’s 29,” she answered. “At least give me a challenge.”

Oliver poked her gently in the forehead, and Felicity smiled in acknowledgement that she was being teased. “Just got off the phone with Cisco,” she said, catching his finger and swinging it between them like a handshake. “He got all cagey when I mentioned Connor. Are we sure he’s still in one piece?”

“My son does have a problem with returning phone calls, but he called me back this morning,” Oliver said. “Told me everything’s going fine at CCPD. Are you sure it wasn’t Cisco just being Cisco?”

“True.” Felicity borrowed the inside pocket of Oliver’s jacket for storage, slipping her phone out of sight. “Maybe it’s nothing. I mean, how much trouble could a sixteen-year-old Queen get into, right?”

Oliver gave her a _don’t even_ kind of look. “Not funny.”

Felicity adjusted his tie and tugged him a little closer to her. “It’s a _little_ funny,” she said. “Not as funny as getting expelled with your best friend for taking apart your algebra teacher’s car and reassembling it on the roof of the school, but still pretty funny. Who knew that knowing how to fix airplanes would be so useful for April Fools’ Day?”

Oliver’s face broke into a smile at the memory. “Felicity Queen, if we weren’t surrounded by people right now, I swear I’d be —”

He had the good grace to whisper the next part in her ear, but Felicity’s jaw still dropped. “ _Mr. Queen_ ,” she said, blushing. “Do you kiss your wife with that mouth?”

“I certainly intend to,” Oliver murmured, and Felicity — laughing — let herself be pulled into a kiss.

If she was being honest, time went a little loopy right then, and she only vaguely recalled being snapped out of it by a pointed cough.

“ _Guys_?” Thea said, her work voice on. “Hello? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Felicity looked around Oliver’s shoulder and choked a little bit at _Tall, Dark and Stranger_ standing behind his sister. For whatever reason, he was rocking a serious Indiana Jones vibe, complete with a dusty travel bag and un-Starling-like tan. “Wow, a _hottie_. New hire, Thea?”

There was a momentary silence in which she reconsidered the potential awkwardness of the statement, especially since no one seemed to know what to say in response. “Sorry — was that weird? I mean, not you, you’re very attractive, in a preppy-ageless-cute-kind-of-way, but I’m married and I procreated with this guy, times two, so — _wow_ , I can’t believe I just used _procreate_ in a sentence, and somebody else needs to start talking right now.”

Oliver exchanged a look of amusement with his sister and extended his hand. “Hi,” he said, candidate’s smile on full blast. “You must be Mr. Olsen.”

“Please, it’s James,” he said, grasping Oliver’s hand and returning the smile. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Queen. Sorry I’m late — Egypt took a little longer than I thought.”

“Like — pyramids, Egypt?” Felicity asked, very impressed. “Sorry — I grew up in Vegas — I thought Paris was a casino in Nevada until I was like, _four_.”

If James found this exchange in any way bizarre, he had the professionalism to keep a warm smile on his face. “Like pyramids Egypt,” he confirmed. “Part of the thrill with freelancing. New places, new people, and a _lot_ of apologies for not being on time. Again, so sorry to keep you waiting.”

“James mostly freelances for the _Daily Planet_ and the _Gotham Herald_ on international assignments,” Thea explained. “We were really lucky to get him for the _Starling Journal_.”

“And you said yes to shooting a mayoral candidate in Starling City?” Felicity asked, before she could help herself.

Oliver pressed his lips together as if to hold back a smile, and shook his head. “My wife,” he said. “What she means to say is — thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to do this.”

James waved a hand. “I volunteered, Mr. Queen. I choose my jobs for the stories they tell, and you’ve probably heard this a lot — but your story’s a very interesting one. I’m a fan of the Green Arrow and Oracle myself.”

“Oh thank god,” Thea said, shooting them a look. “Because these two are impossible in front of a camera. Trust me, my six-year-old niece and nephew know how to keep a straight face better than their parents.”

Felicity scratched behind one ear. “ _Guilty_ ,” she coughed.

James laughed and set down his bag. “Well, I can assure you I have plenty of experience shooting things that have trouble staying still,” he said, pulling out his camera and looping the strap around his neck. “As someone whose first job was in a beauty studio at a Kansas City mall, I think we can all agree that we should avoid _Bad Prom Photo_ and go for something a little more…natural. Sound good?”

“Absolutely,” Oliver said.

James put the camera up to his face and studied them through the lens. “Would you mind ditching the suit jacket, Mr. Queen?”

Felicity raised her eyebrows at Thea. “I like him already,” she said.

* * *

“I think this is the first time anyone’s ever told me to keep talking,” Felicity said, as the camera clicked in front of them. “This is a weird moment for me.”

Oliver had been positioned in a tall chair with Felicity standing just a little to the side, her arm draped across his shoulder. Up until then, he’d endeavored to maintain a semi-serious expression, but he felt his face break into a smile at Felicity’s (very accurate) observation, and the smile only widened when she laughed.

“Good — that’s good,” James called, his eye to the lens. “Felicity, lean a little further over his shoulder, like you’re whispering a secret. Oliver, roll your sleeves up a little more, and you can laugh if she tells you something funny — I promise I won’t let your sister yell at you.”

Thea rolled her eyes good-naturedly from where she stood beside James. Oliver did as he was asked, folding his shirtsleeves to just above his elbow, an act observed very interestedly by his wife.

“Oo, giving them a peek at the good stuff,” she whispered, and Oliver laughed, a shot quickly captured with their photographer’s fast reflexes.

“You can move if it feels natural,” James reminded them. “That chair’s just there as a prop. What we want to see in the photos is who you are together — goofy, serious, doesn’t matter as long as you mean it.”

_As long as he meant it_.

Oliver straightened up from the chair and held out a hand to Felicity, who looked mildly taken aback. “Do you trust me?” he asked.

Felicity slipped her fingers through his. “Hurts me that you feel the need to ask.”

Oliver winked and spun her without warning. Felicity whooped in surprise, but he was ready and caught her around the waist before she stumbled, sliding his palm to the center of her back like they were dancing. She smothered her laughter into the side of his neck while she swayed in his arms — glowing with it, utterly free of self-consciousness in a moment that was just for them.

James wanted to know what they were like together, and this was it. The simplest, most basic essence of who they were. Felicity was the only person who could surprise him with something new, every day, and make him reconsider a world he thought he’d seen before in an entirely new light.

“You asked me if I ever thought about retiring,” he said, very quietly, because it wasn’t meant for anyone else’s ears but theirs. “But I never asked you. Do you think it’s time that we move on?”

Felicity tipped her head back to look at him, her hand completely steady in his as they moved slowly from side to side. “Of course not,” she said. “I love you — and I love our life together. All of it. I wouldn’t change a single second.”

“Neither would I,” Oliver agreed. “But when that day comes…I promise I’ll go anywhere with you.”

Felicity made a face. “Even Bali?”

“Bali — Paris — wherever,” he swore. “Just say the word, and we’ll go. Hazel, Tommy, the whole family, if that’s what you want.”

“I’d go right now,” she said, “but I just have one more question.”

Oliver knew she was about to tease him, but he played along anyway. “Wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”

“How’s the Justice League going to fit in a carry-on suitcase? Because if it’s still around, it means we have more work to do before our next big adventure, Mr. Green Arrow.”

Even though it was the answer Oliver had been expecting, it still never ceased to surprise Oliver how honest Felicity could be — in her nervousness, in her anger, but most often her happiness, wearing her heart proudly on her sleeve despite the world they lived in and the things she’d seen.

Felicity Smoak had always been fearless, and Oliver had no doubt whatsoever that Felicity Queen would never change.

Looking down at her, Oliver felt it again, filling the inside of his chest with something beyond words. Love, hope, trust…and so much more, for the woman he was lucky to spend the rest of his life with. Forgetting that they were in front of cameras, he gathered her face in his hands and pressed his forehead to hers.

“Whatever you say, Oracle,” he whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone's wondering, I'm not insane, The Shade is a legit DC character. *cue Justice League cartoon nostalgia*  
> James (Jimmy) Olsen is a little random Easter egg thingamajig I threw in there, because fun times and photoshoots. Which reminds me — I really need to start watching Supergirl :D


	7. Surprise Encounter

“What happened to the good old days when bad guys did their shady business down at the docks?” Felicity wondered aloud, otherwise engaged with her favorite (gray-area) pastime. “I mean, kudos to them for _finally_ getting some security, but ripping off the Pentagon? Rude.”

“When did we have a mission involving the Pentagon?” Diggle said, in an undertone easily picked up by the comms.

Oliver made a sound that resembled a sigh. “Believe it or not, I find it easier to keep track of the places my wife _can’t_ hack into. Oracle, how’s that decryption going?”

Felicity threw up her hands. “Great, now anyone listening in on the frequency knows Oracle’s your wife, Mr. _Green Arrow_ ,” she said. “Do you maybe want to mention what flavor toothpaste I use and your favorite color, just to make our codenames extra useless?”

“I try to avoid stating the obvious,” Roy added, with his usual level of sarcasm, “but the whole city knows who the big three are. That’s kinda what happens when you out yourselves on live television…seven years ago.”

“Why do we always do this?” Thea said, making a perfectly valid point about their group-style bickering. “Look, Arrow Jr.’s train gets here in fifty-six minutes, so let’s break up this arms deal and not leave a poor, defenseless sixteen-year-old waiting at the train station. He’s from Central City. The ticket guy’s going to eat him alive.”

Roy gave an exaggerated cough. “You’re forgetting that the ‘poor, defenseless sixteen-year-old’ also flipped me like a pancake.”

“Oh yeah.” Thea chuckled. “That _was_ pretty funny.”

“Oracle, did you call your dad about backup?” Diggle asked.

Five-ish years on, it still took a second’s lag for Felicity to process what he meant by that — and roll her eyes. “ _Step_ dad,” she corrected, switching screens to check on police communications. “And _how_ exactly is that still a joke?”

“Because despite Captain Lance’s best efforts, he still ended up with Oliver Queen for a son-in-law,” Diggle answered, dripping amusement from his every word. “That’s never gonna stop being funny.”

Felicity didn’t have to see Oliver to imagine the massive eye-roll. “Not that I’m the authority on humor, but you and I really need to have a discussion about what counts as funny, Spartan.”

“Sounds like a conversation to have over some Russian vodka, but for now — we’re on the job.”

“ _If_ I liked vodka and _if_ we weren’t also on League time, I’d protest at being left out,” Felicity said, finishing the last few keystrokes of her hack. “But — lucky for you — SCPD has a couple of prisoner transport vehicles heading your way, and as of two seconds ago, exterior perimeter alarms are down, and their interior security mainframe just suffered a very quiet aneurysm. _Oops_.”

“What a shame,” Oliver agreed. “Thank you, Oracle. Green Arrow, out.”

* * *

Felicity — with her area of expertise and considerable lack of combat-readiness — was used to monitoring the team’s progress from her back-supporting chair in the Watchtower. There was the occasional temptation to play Tetris while waiting, maybe the odd impulse to hijack Oliver’s campaign Twitter account for nefarious purposes, but rarely (and this was saying a lot) a double booking.

“Well, look who decided to call,” she said, doing a full three-sixty in her chair. “A super speedster who can’t send more than the occasional emoji text about the morning coffee line? Where’s my apology cookie?”

“Hi Felicity,” Barry said, opting for the natural greeting instead of… _that_. “I know I’m a sucky friend for not calling sooner, but is there _any_ chance I can hit pause on the guilt-trip until after I catch these guys?”

“You mean until after I’ve _helped_ you catch these guys,” she amended. “Can you feel the guilt-trip vibes I’m sending over?”

There was a thump, like Barry had mimed being stabbed. “ _Dagger_ ,” he coughed. “So…is that a yes?”

“It’s a _You’re Lucky Bad Guys Make Bad Choices_ free pass,” Felicity said, already switching gears to the CCPD field communications. “I’m guessing the guys you’re after just took off with the Rubinstein deposits? Before you ask — it’s already on police frequencies. Oh, and just so you know, I _will_ need you to pay tribute to your overlord as soon as these guys make it into CCPD custody.”

“Deal. I swear to God you’re saving my life here, Felicity — I mean, Oracle. Vibe — _screw it_ — Cisco went completely AWOL for his date and I’m supposed to meet Iris at Grover Preschool for parent-teacher night in… _I’m-already-late_ minutes.”

“Parent-teacher night?” she repeated. “Isn’t Henry — like — five? The most interesting thing that could possibly come out of that parent-teacher conference is someone eating a crayon.”

“ _Felicity_ ,” Barry said, a few decibels shy of his loud voice. “I promise I will make up on the small talk when I see you, but can you _please_ , for the love of all that is holy in guacamole, help me track down some guys?”

“Geez, _someone_ put on his Oliver-pants today,” she commented, flicking through windows of traffic cam footage at strobe-light speed. “Who sneezed into your morning coffee, Grumpy Cat?”

“Is this what it’s like with you on the comms?” Barry snarked back. “I mean, do you and Oliver keep up the whole _married flirty banter_ thing while he jumps into machine gunfire?”

Felicity snorted and reached for her buzzing phone. “Actually, these days it’s mostly just semi-automatics.” She swiped the screen to pick up the call. “Oo, speak of the devil. Hi, honey — I mean, Green Arrow — did you break up the arms deal?”

“We’re in position,” Oliver said. “Spartan managed to get visual confirmation that the deal’s happening, but I seem to recall you telling me not to take stupid risks. Any surprises waiting for us inside?”

“Copy that, GA. Heat signature’s picking up twenty hostiles in the main hall,” Felicity said, double-checking the site map to make sure. “Alpha team — I’d watch your six, there’s a pair of guards coming right at you. Beta team — one guard straight ahead, easy subdue. Oh, and they brought dogs — _that_ , I can’t hack.”

Oliver grunted. “Of course they did. Thanks, honey. I’ll check in later.”

“Stay safe — make smart choices!” Felicity swung back around to Barry’s side of the computers. “Sorry to keep you hanging. Where were we?”

Typical. She’d forgotten to mute her side of the line.

“You know he uses a bow and arrow, right?” Barry said. “Like the thing that cavemen used to use to hunt rabbits and stuff? For someone who can’t survive without Wi-Fi and some kind of screen for five minutes, you’re just… _cool_ with your husband using the modern equivalent of a wooden stick to fight bad guys?”

“Okay, first of all, we have children now — one of whom happens to love Peter Rabbit — so there’s going to be no _shooting bunnies_ of any kind,” Felicity said sternly. “Secondly, we both know that Oliver could still beat you into next Tuesday with a stick, so let’s just tone down the trash-talk, Mr. Zippy.”

“ _Mr. Zippy —_?”

An alert pinged, cutting him off mid-indignation. “Pause on that glorious comeback,” she said, and leaned over to see, oblivious to the pride-hurt lightning bolt on the other end of the comms. “Okay, Mr. Speedster, if my tracking skills aren’t wrong — and they never are — your guy’s heading up Green Street, rounding the corner on Fifth.”

“Sweet. I’ll head up Adams to cut him off.”

“You’re kidding, right? Go through the park.”

“Felicity, Central City’s kinda my turf. I _think_ I’d know which way is the fastest _—_ what with the whole _fastest man alive_ thing.”

Felicity laughed through her nose. “That’s cute. Go through the park, Barry.”

"Fine," he said. " _Fine_. But only because I wouldn't put it past you to upload embarrassing pictures of me to Google Earth if I don't."

"What am I, six? I'd have you on the TSA's No-Fly List right before that big vacation to the Caribbean."

" _How_ _—_ "

Felicity was distracted from Barry's witty response by Constantine striding past the computers with an armful of semi-melted wax candles and a family-sized ziplock bag that looked filled to the brim with —

“Is that _blood_?” she said, ignoring the yelps and general sounds of super-speediness from Barry taking down three ill-advised larceny offenders. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but John, _please_ tell me that’s not blood.”

“All right, love, keep your pants on.” Constantine was already halfway through the doors to the sparring center. “I won’t tell you it’s blood.”

“John — _John!_ ”

The doors whooshed shut behind him, and Felicity was met with a strange clash of priorities: helping Barry, or stop Oliver’s mystically-affiliated friend from leaving — and this was the best-case scenario here — one _heck_ of a stain for janitorial.

“Yo, Felicity — I got ‘em. Could you call Joe and have him send someone for pickup?” Barry asked. “Also, did you say blood?”

“Oliver’s mystical-mojo friend has a very open policy when it comes to bodily fluids in rituals,” she said darkly. “I just tipped off Captain West from the League hotline — you can split for that parent-teacher thing.”

“Thanks Felicity, I owe you one.”

“Bring me that gigantic cookie when you come over next week and we’ll call it even.”

“How about my father-in-law’s amazing homemade rib sauce?”

Felicity grinned. “Deal. See you then.”

* * *

“Sorry about that, our members-only hotline seems to be experiencing a little more traffic than usual,” Felicity explained, typing rapidly in the meantime.

Oliver slammed an assault rifle out of the way and stopped an arm mid-punch, twisting both wrist and elbow towards the ground to dislocate the thug’s shoulder. “Trouble?” he asked, leaving his attacker unconscious on the ground.

“Nothing my magic fingers can’t handle,” she said, and _tsk_ -ed. “I just heard it too.”

Oliver had to smile at his wife’s reliably adorable quirk, circumstances aside. “Direct me — where are they?”

“Copy that, GA. Your vantage point’s up ahead. Balcony seating — should give you a pretty good view of the weapons cache. The doors look villain-grade soundproof, so I’m guessing they haven’t heard your big entrance. Make sure you have your tickets ready.”

“You’re mixing a lot of metaphors, honey,” Oliver said, checking around the next corner with his bow at the ready. “Are the others in position?”

“They are,” she confirmed. “You guys should have all four exits locked nice and tight. You took those trick arrows I marked _Extra-Special_ , right?”

Oliver reached back for his quiver out of reflex, making sure they were there. “I thought those were a joke,” he said flatly. “I gave them to Hazel.”

Felicity paused. “I hope you’re kidding, because a), I’ll kill you, b), I’ll get Constantine to mojo you back to life so I can kill you again, and c), the EMP blast those babies send out are going to wipe out all the electronics in the house, and we won’t have internet for a week. You know how much I love the Internet.”

Oliver fired a tranquilizer arrow into a guard’s back and caught his arm before he crashed into the floor. “Why do you never believe I’m joking?” he asked, lowering the guard gently against the wall.

“Because out of the crazy archery skills, super-jujitsu and inhuman fitness, being intentionally funny is _not_ one of the things I associate with Oliver Queen,” Felicity answered, and Oliver knew she was teasing him back.

He sighed in mock-exasperation. “I love you too,” he said, and slipped through the doors.

The warehouse interior was buzzing with talk, some of Starling’s worst criminals moving between half-open crates, inspecting the stock prior to the auction. Oliver kept his head low as he crept towards the balcony railing, waiting on Felicity’s signal to strike.

“What’s in the crates?” Roy asked, similarly camouflaged on the level overlooking the main hall.

“I spotted some RPGs,” Diggle said. “Enough long-range mines to blow a hole in the middle of the city. They don’t look Russian-made. I’d say Chinese, but I’m a little rusty on the black market favorites.”

“ _Or_ ,” Felicity interjected, “Mayor Castle needs to tighten up security on the backdoor options these guys are using to smuggle weapons into Starling City. I see at least ten dummy corporation logos on those crates.”

“Explosives make me antsy,” Thea said. “Let’s just disarm them and bust the auction up.”

“Two seconds. I hacked their security cameras so I could run facial recognition on the live feed. We need a record of whoever’s here, just in case we lose a couple of pieces. Wouldn’t want to send them home from the party without a gift bag.”

There was a pause. “I’m lost,” Roy said. “What’s the gift bag in this situation and why are we sending them home with one?”

Felicity sighed. “Just let me sound cool, okay? You guys already get to wear leather and kick ass — let me sit in my chair in the basement and say the cryptic one-liners.”

“Girl to girl, you really don’t want to know what swamp-butt feels like,” Thea said. “Trust me, Kevlar-reinforced leather does _not_ breathe.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Oliver said. “I think I found the seller. North-west corner, near the dais. Do you see him?”

“Bald, indoor sunglasses, super-villain beard?” Felicity said. “I feel like he should be wearing a lab coat. Y’know, just to make Dr. Frankenstein vibe extra obvious.”

“Old friend of yours?” Diggle asked.

Oliver shook his head. “I’ve seen him in Gotham. When we put the Joker in Arkham — he was running the place. He didn’t mention an interest in black market arms dealing.”

“Facial recognition got a match. Dr. Hugo Strange, chief psychologist at Arkham Asylum,” Felicity said, making no effort to conceal her thoughts on his name. “And I thought Cisco asking everyone to call him _Vibe_ was a bad idea.”

“Bad enough we have our own city’s lowlifes to deal with,” Diggle remarked. “You can’t tell the Bat to take out his own trash?”

Personally, Oliver thought his best friend sounded more irritated by Bruce’s choice of the bat symbol than anything else, and that if anyone stood a chance of pointing out the Batman’s shortcomings and living to tell the tale, it was John Diggle.

But that was neither here nor there.

“I’ll put it on the memo,” Felicity promised. “I’m about to kill the lights, and you know how active bad guys’ trigger fingers are, so I suggest everyone duck. Arrows Red and Green, you guys have the _super_ -fun task of disabling their weapons. Two EMP arrows, north and south. That should cover the room. Spartan and Arsenal, turn on night vision and start tranquing.”

“Yes ma’am,” Thea said, her voice teasing. “The basement chair suits you, Boss Oracle.”

“Pshh. You’re just saying that because I’m in charge of the Christmas bonuses,” Felicity said modestly. “All right, going dark in three —”

Oliver slid the custom-designed arrow from his quiver and fitted it carefully to his bow, all without taking his eyes from the stacked crates.

“Two —”

Oliver’s silent breath shivered the bowstring.

“ _One_.”

The snap of two arrows being fired cut through the air, and true to the Oracle’s prediction, everything erupted into chaos.

* * *

Bullets sparked off the ceiling lights as Oliver took the last few steps at a run and cleared the railing in one leap. He fired a grappling arrow around the steel bar and swung sharply out of the fall, landing on his knees behind the crates.

The modified version of the mask was fully equipped for night vision and thermal imaging at the press of a button, but Oliver still disliked the feeling of his vision being obscured, even if it was technically helping him see in the dark.

“I hate this thing,” he muttered, to no one in particular.

“You’re going to make Curtis cry — he re-designed the mask for you as a Christmukkah present,” Felicity said. “ _Left_.”

Oliver twisted and fired, putting an arrow through a buyer’s shin. “Thanks,” he said. “Where’s —”

Something flashed in his peripheral vision and Oliver ducked, before he even heard the warning growl of a guard dog. He raised his bow just in time to ward off the dog’s massive weight, but not quickly enough to avoid the menacing snap of its jaws. The sharp canines raked the exposed skin above his gauntlets and pain flared from wrist to elbow, but Oliver twisted out of the way and shot an arrow above the dog’s head.

It went off with a burst of pale blue, emitting at an ultrasonic frequency undetectable to human ears, but Oliver knew it worked when the dog backed into the shadows with a whimper.

“Did Cujo get you?” Felicity asked.

Oliver shook his head, rolling his shoulder despite the sting in his forearm. “I handled it. Where’s Strange?”

“Doctor Malarkey — working name, don’t judge me — is at your three o’clock, currently attempting escape through one of the side exits. Overwhelmingly impenetrably sealed side exits, I should say. He’s not going anywhere, but Spartan might need an assist. He’s in a four to one fight.”

“I see him.” Oliver broke into a run. Someone’s arm swung at his head and he ducked, sliding the last few meters across the smooth concrete.

One of the bodyguards had Diggle in a chokehold, with another landing punches from the front. Oliver stabbed an arrow into a thug’s leg and slammed his bow around the front one’s throat, hauling him out of the way. They crashed against the wall with enough impact to drive the air out of Oliver’s lungs, and even throwing blind punches the guard was as strong as a bear.

A clumsy haymaker narrowly missed his skull, and Oliver used the momentum to kick his adversary’s feet out from under him. He staggered, overcorrecting just in time for Oliver to knock him out with a well-placed swing.

“Nice try,” he panted, and turned back to find his friend.

Only to find Diggle waiting for him with three unconscious bodyguards on the floor. “ _Nice try?_ ” he repeated. “Good thing you have Felicity, because your one-liners have _not_ gotten better at all.”

“Shut up, Spartan,” Oliver answered.

Diggle chuckled and reached for his earpiece. “Oracle, I think we’re almost done here. Is SCPD on standby?”

“Yep,” Felicity said. “Good work, boys, now pick up Strange and —”

The rest of Felicity’s answer was cut off in a burst of static, and suddenly, Oliver couldn’t see.

Out of nowhere, without warning. Just…gone. Oliver was armed, his bow raised and ready to fire at any threat, but a part of him knew it was hopeless. Until a second ago, Diggle had been standing right beside him, and now…it was like he’d vanished, silently, in the blink of an eye.

Oliver was alone.

It wasn't the kind of darkness that came from a malfunction in his mask’s night vision, or the kind of darkness that came with the flick of a switch. It was the kind of shadow that swallowed the senses, that seemed to fight against his limbs when he tried to move them, like it was… _alive._

It was like all the sound receded to a single, faraway point, and although he heard it through a strange, distorted veil, the whispers were nothing like any language he’d heard before.

Then — Oliver knew.

“It’s here,” he said, and just like that, the lights were on again.

Oliver winced from the glare, amplified by the night vision in his mask. He powered it down and looked around the room. Everything was in chaos, a mess of the unconscious and the inanimate, crates overturned and disemboweled, their contents strewn across the floor.

“What the hell was that?” Diggle said.

Oliver never got to answer, because his earpiece released a pop of static from sudden reactivation. “Oliver — _Oliver!_ ” Felicity said, sounding frantic. “Are you —?”

“We’re fine.” Oliver caught Diggle’s eye and nodded, turned to see his sister and Roy on opposite sides of the hall. Everyone looked as if they’d been stopped in their tracks by the sudden darkness, unscathed, but stunned. They were all unsettled, unanswered questions and a deep, inexplicable current of unease humming close to the surface.

“What happened?” Felicity asked. “The comms and the cameras went down, so I turned the lights back on, but nothing worked — _oh_. You don’t think…”

“I don’t know,” Oliver answered.

There was a faint scrape at the edge of the hall, and Oliver heard Strange’s deep voice rumble in a laugh. He was on the dais, leaning on one of the crates as he looked down on them all.

“You have no idea what just happened, do you?” he said. “You vigilantes. Even with the light…you are still _blind_.”

Oliver glanced at Diggle, who had his gun trained on Dr. Strange.

“No,” he agreed, and reached for a tranquilizer arrow. “But I have a feeling you’re going to help us there, Doctor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on 4x12:   
>  \- Nyssa speaking Japanese is my new sexuality (also: please don’t kill off Katana just because she’s in the new Suicide Squad movie, you’ve basically killed off all the Asians in Arrow already, just leave her alone)  
> \- I may have yelled “THAT’S MY BABY” too many times at the computer   
> \- Felicity deserves none of this Board-Member-Guy’s crap. Like really.  
> \- Curtis is so cute. “Oh. Then you might have to hurt me.”  
> \- A YEAR AGO ROY COULD BARELY SPELL COMPUTER???! EXCUSE YOU, LAUREL, A YEAR AGO ROY WAS BACKFLIPPING OFF FENCES AND FREAKING SAVING THE CITY WHILE YOU RAN AROUND ANGST-FLAILING LIKE A HEADLESS CHICKEN. DON’T YOU DARE MESS WITH THE REAL TEAM ARROW. Shoo, little bird. SHOO.  
> \- Nooooooo Theroy needs to come baaaaack. Coltonnnnnnn. Come baaaaaack. (Though I have to admit, I was a little relieved to see that he made it safely through the episode without being killed off. Sorry boo, you’re safer elsewhere.)  
> \- Papa Smoak is so going to blackmail Oliver in some capacity. Awks. I need Donna to punch him in the face like right now.  
> \- Oh. My. God. I am so tired of the writers pretending Nyssa actually needs Oliver to fight her battles for her. She is WELL capable of kicking Malcolm’s sorry ass by herself, thank you very much. Besides, doesn’t the League have a stupid rule about whoever kills Ra’s al Ghul becomes the new Ra’s????  
> \- On a somewhat related note: Who the hell invited you to any of this, Malcolm???


	8. Business As Usual

Oliver craned his neck and tried to see around the crowded train station. It was late on a weekday, but the Starling-Central City high-speed rail had always been popular. Train numbers and arrival times scrolled down the board, a sight that was in no way reassuring because Connor should have arrived an hour ago.

“What if he’s lost?” he asked. “Could you hack the security cameras and find out where he is?”

“The _aww_ — no _e_ , just so we’re clear — that I’m feeling right now at your adorableness as a parent is just _slightly_ undercut by your lack of faith in me,” Felicity answered, snark in full force. “Your son’s going to be fine. He’s one-half you, remember?”

Oliver checked his watch, ignoring the sting in his arm from the dog bites that still needed stitching. “He should have been here at eight-thirty. Do you think he’s at a bar?”

“Usually I’m good with your _non sequiturs_ , but you’re going to have to walk me through this one.”

“It was on… _Dateline_ ,” Oliver muttered.

“Mm-hm. Also — you still remember your fake IDs from when you were yea-high,” she guessed. “Fair point, but judging from his genetic predisposition to non-punctuality…he probably missed his train and caught the next one instead. _Relax_.”

“You know me — I don’t _relax_.” Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was supposed to pick up my son an hour ago, a meta surprised us while we were on the job tonight and might have taken God knows what —”

“— is this what I sound like to other people?” Felicity wondered aloud. “I mean, I knew I was rubbing off on you, but still —”

“ _Felicity_.”

“Oliver — love of my life, father of my children, occasional star in inappropriate sex dreams — we’re handling it. That’s what we do. We’re the Justice League, and we handle it. I called Curtis and had him go over to the SCPD. He’ll help with cataloging the confiscated weapons, we borrowed the crates so we can run trace on them, and you can pick up your son just like we planned. Easy, breezy. Okay?”

Oliver didn’t say anything at first, but held the phone to his ear with a smile on his face. “How’d you get to be so smart?”

“I’d say drugs, but as potential first lady of Starling City I’ve been told I’m not allowed to joke about narcotics,” Felicity said seriously. “Alex sat me down the other day for an Dubsmash Disco edition of no-no topics. Suffice it to say, leather and buckles featured _prominently_ in that discussion.”

Oliver laughed. “I love you.”

Felicity was definitely smiling. “Love you too,” she answered. “Also — don’t look.”

“What?”

“ _Boo_ ,” said Connor.

Oliver turned to find his son standing behind him, duffel on the ground and hands in exaggerated claws. “Found him,” he said, into his phone. “Also — you’re going to pay for that.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Felicity said primly. “But he was texting me the whole time you were freaking out. Did I mention I love you? Oh, look, call waiting — bye!”

Felicity hung up before he could say anything, and Oliver tucked his phone back into his pocket. “Sorry I’m late,” he said to Connor, opening his arms for a hug. “Were you scared?”

His son was sixteen, athletic, and — he’d been told repeatedly — had not only inherited the family tendency for the selective disregard of rules, but the Queen looks as well. His straight nose and slightly rounded chin were reminiscent of his grandmother, though the look of disgust Connor shot him bore an uncanny resemblance to his uncle Roy’s. “What am I, twelve?” he answered sarcastically, but submitted to a hug nonetheless.

Albeit a three-second one.

“That hug gets shorter and shorter every time,” Oliver commented, giving his son a once-over to confirm that he was actually unscathed. “When did it stop being cool to like your dad?”

Connor shrugged. “I’m a teenager — if I act like you don’t embarrass me, I lose all credibility.”

Being married to Felicity meant that Oliver had acquired an immunity to sarcasm and rhetorical questions, but sometimes he wondered if he’d underestimated the effects of having Connor spend so much time with her during his formative years. Especially since the formative years in question had resulted in his son learning more about hacking than Oliver was comfortable with.

It was by no means a novel observation, but Oliver realized that Connor had — somehow — gotten taller. _Again_. A summer interning at the Central City crime lab meant that Oliver hadn’t seen his son as much as he’d have liked to, but it seemed impossible how a teenage boy could creep a few inches upward in the span of weeks.

_Have you ever thought about handing the bow off to someone else? Passing it on within the family?_

Oliver hugged his son again, without warning, without preamble, just like he’d used to when Connor only came up to his elbow and still asked for chocolate milk with dinner, instead of styling his hair spiky and gassing himself with what seemed like an unhealthy amount of cologne.

“ _Dad_.” Connor prodded Oliver’s shoulder, his voice slightly muffled. “You’re being weird.”

“I just missed you,” Oliver answered. “This cologne is terrible, by the way.”

“Get off me!” Connor laughed, elbowing Oliver away from him. “It’s Axe, okay? I knocked over some formaldehyde at the lab. It was either that or Cisco’s popcorn deodorant.”

Somehow, that information did not surprise Oliver in the least. “I think Cisco left out the part about not using enough to fumigate a termite infestation,” he said, starting to reach for the duffel.

Connor grabbed it first and slung the strap easily across his chest. “I got it, old man — wouldn’t want you to break a hip or something.”

Oliver put his arm around Connor’s shoulders and gave him a shake. “Don’t get cocky. I still have a few moves to teach you.”

“I’m a junior in high school with a superhero for a dad,” Connor said, with a snort. “Cocky’s all I have.”

“Sure it is,” Oliver said. “Watchtower, or Big Belly Burger first?”

Connor pretended to think. “Big Belly first,” he said, and grinned.

* * *

Connor crumpled up a burger wrapper and rummaged around the bag for another. “Mayo,” he muttered, with a wrinkled nose.

Oliver stopped at a red light and glanced over at his son. “Do you ever stop eating?”

“Calm down — it’s a falafel burger, not a ribeye,” Connor said, around a mouthful of chickpea and slaw. “Being a vegetarian means I get to eat double.”

“Not sure it works that way, Connor.”

Another gigantic bite of burger. “Works for me.”

Oliver shook his head, amused. The lights changed and the car moved smoothly through the intersection.

“So why do you smell like C4?” Connor asked, propping his knees against the dash. “Were you on duty tonight? Spill.”

Oliver frowned. “Since when do you know what C4 smells like?”

“Uh, I have you as a dad, my workstation’s near Trace and Ballistics, and I took AP Chem,” Connor answered. “Pick one of three.”

“I may have skipped some classes, but I’m pretty sure they don’t actually show you what explosives smell like in high school chemistry,” Oliver said skeptically.

“First of all — solid parenting,” Connor said. “Second— we made stink bombs and used Bunsen burners. Third — you’re avoiding the question. What happened out there?”

Oliver’s injured arm twinged at the question. “Dog.”

Connor raised his eyebrows. “Chow Chow or Chihuahua?”

“Very funny. I think it was a German Shepherd.”

“Dog spit’s pretty nasty.” Connor eyed him speculatively. “You had your rabies shot, right?”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “I’m the one who’s not scared of needles in the family — of course I had my shot.”

“So…what does one do, if one was being chased by a big dog?” Connor asked, iced soda in hand.

“Ultrasonic arrow. I usually keep a few in my quiver if we’re storming someplace fortified. Most of them keep a guard dog or two near the fence area.”

“Cool. And the frequency output, they’re configured to — what — fifty, one hundred feet?” he asked, his tone innocent.

Oliver made no effort to conceal his suspicion. “Why are you asking me about ultrasonic frequencies?”

Connor shook the paper bag, ostentatiously busying himself with the hunt for curly fries. “Because,” he said, “I’m a naturally curious person.”

“Mm-hm,” Oliver said. “The same _natural curiosity_ that made you borrow my voice changer because you _had_ to know how it worked. The same _natural curiosity_ that got me an angry phone call from your mother in the middle of a meeting, because you _had_ to play that prank on her. Am I forgetting anything?”

Connor raised his finger. “One thing. She’s managing partner at the firm now, so I’m pretty sure that angry phone call’s going to be a lawsuit if I ever pull that crap again — her words.”

“Fantastic,” Oliver said. “Guess who’s not allowed anywhere near the Watchtower armory?”

Connor balled up another empty wrapper. “No one likes a mayor without a sense of humor.”

* * *

“Oliver just texted,” Felicity reported. “Connor — surprise, surprise — wasn’t kidnapped and sold into slavery, and they’re bringing Big Belly takeout.”

Instead of the usual whoop and hurrah that greeted the words _Big Belly_ , there was only a conspicuous silence.

“What happened, guys?” she asked, swiveling around in her computer chair. “Did I miss a _Going Healthy_ bet, or something? Are we cutting out grease and salt? Because we really should have voted on something that important.”

“No one loves saturated fat more than I do,” Roy said, leaning on a table beside Diggle, “but I’m not feeling it right now.”

“Second,” Diggle agreed. “There has _got_ to be a better way to do this.”

Thea waved one-handedly, texting from where she sat by Felicity’s keyboard. “Leave him alone,” she said. “We all work differently. Curtis sings Adele, Felicity talks to herself, and Constantine — _whoa_ —”

They all ducked when a spray of blood projectiled towards the computers, followed by a shout in some obscure mystical-mojo language.

“Gets completely naked and covers himself in animal blood,” Roy concluded. “At least I hope that’s animal blood, or we’re going to have to make a big donation to the local blood bank.”

“You mean, on top of the donations Queen Industries makes whenever you guys crash through windows and kick down doors?” Felicity asked pointedly. “I know it looks cool, but _maybe_ try picking a lock sometime. Just an amateur’s opinion.”

“Hey, I’ve known Oliver for almost ten years and I have literally _never_ seen him walk through a door in full Green Arrow getup,” Roy retorted.

“ _Alright_ ,” Diggle said, clearly recognizing the signs of an impending bicker-fest. “Let’s try to focus on why we’re all here. SCPD needs those crates back in evidence, and we need to find our meta. Though why that involves blood and ritualistic chanting, I’m not entirely sure.”

Felicity knew he’d intentionally raised his voice at the last part, a jab that went straight over Constantine’s blood-covered-and-not-much-else head. The reinforced carbon steel crates from the busted weapons deal had been put in the middle of the room, emptied of their contents (the SCPD’s generosity didn’t extend so far as to give them live RPGs out of evidence lockup) but apparently usable for something Constantine had termed _channeling_.

Because apparently, a walking, talking (possibly) human manifestation of darkness and shadow still needed to use their hands to steal something.

“I’m not cleaning that up,” Sin announced, entering the room with Curtis in tow.

Who had — for some reason — opted to self-blindfold, holding a tablet in front of his eyes while he fumbled his way towards the workstation.

“I found Boy Terrific here trying to walk into a wall,” Sin explained. “He keeps telling me he’s married, and I think it has something to do with English over there dropping trou.”

“He’s doing a spell,” Thea and Felicity said simultaneously.

“And the mystical forces won’t help him out if he puts on some pants?” Sin questioned, which was a highly valid point. “Pretty sure this qualifies as harassment.”

“Oh, he asked everybody before he got naked,” Thea volunteered. “League policy…apparently.”

“I put that in the rulebook as a joke,” Diggle said. “Though it did come in handy after someone found you and Oliver in the sparring center.”

Felicity coughed, loudly. “ _One time_ ,” she said. “And we were doing… _that_ …because the showers were broken.”

“Sister veto,” Thea said. “Don’t know, don’t _want_ to know.”

“ _Ow_ ,” Curtis said, hopping on one leg. “Desk to the knee. Desk to the knee.”

“Curtis, _everyone’s_ married here,” Felicity said. “We all know you love Paul, so just…”

Curtis held out the tablet, one hand resolutely over his eyes. “So I finished cataloging everything in SCPD custody,” he said. “In hindsight, I probably should have gone there _after_ they cavity-searched all the perps, but anyway, taking into account everything that was accidentally broken during the fisticuffs — and _believe_ me, you do _not_ know complicated until you’ve tried to reassemble a broken sonic interrupter —”

“— Curtis, less geek, more English,” Thea said.

“Did the interrupter have a 5.0 megahertz chip?” Felicity asked. “Or was it the dual-function processer?”

“Never mind,” Thea muttered.

“Sorry.” Curtis was still talking to the floor. “Once we narrow it down to the crate, we should be able to find out if anything’s gone.”

“Which brings us back to the weirdo chanting gibberish,” Sin said. “Anyone hungry?”

“I _think_ it’s Aramaic,” Felicity guessed. “John also said that we could destroy the whole Watchtower if we stopped the ritual.”

Diggle made a disparaging noise. “Bearing in mind this is the same guy who told me last week that I’d be upsetting the balance of nature if I didn’t give him the last piece of chicken.”

“I like to keep my process a mystery, mate,” Constantine said abruptly, his back still turned to them. “Be a doll and kill the lights, will you, Oracle? Things are about to get interesting.”

Felicity had her doubts, but she reached for the controls anyway. The lights blinked off and plunged the room into mostly-shadow, sending a faint chill up the back of her neck.

They were _not_ having good luck with shadows lately.

Constantine continued to chant, standing in the middle of a perfect circle drawn in salt and finished with indecipherable symbols that looked more picture than word. The working computer screens threw off a pale halo around the workstations, mingling with the dancing shadows made by the three candles surrounding the self-proclaimed dabbler in the dark arts.

“ _Five elements of the earth, I respect and invoke thee. From the six directions, converge upon this place…_ ”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Diggle muttered.

Felicity _shh_ -ed him.

“ _Five elements of the earth, we seek one who is unnatural_ ,” Constantine held a fistful of salt above the candles, letting it slip through his fingers like silver rain. “ _Reveal thy truth_.”

He inhaled deeply and blew the salt free. “ _Reveal the shadow_ ,” he said, and the hoarse whisper echoed strangely within the steel walls of the room.

Curtis made a strangled noise of surprise, and Sin whistled. “That is some freaky mojo,” she breathed.

Even Roy looked interested, standing bolt upright and staring at the scene below the dais. Instead of succumbing to gravity, the grains of salt never made a landing, clouding mid-air instead like the sand inside an hourglass, a miniature hurricane frozen solid around a single crate.

Felicity tugged on Curtis’s sleeve to get his attention. “John, what’s the crate number?” she asked.

John sauntered forward to get a better look at the crate, seemingly unfazed by the suspended salt. “That would be…29B,” he said. “I suppose I should keep _Master of the Dark Arts_ on the card after all.”

Roy tossed him his clothes, trench coat included. “Put those on, unless you want us to start throwing singles.”

Constantine winked at him. “Be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it, with a face like mine.”

Curtis cleared his throat with what seemed like a painful level of _loud_ , his nose almost pressed to the tablet. “Crate 29-B…comparing Dr. Strange’s records and what we managed to piece together, it looks like the only thing missing is one quantum manifold, courtesy of Kord Industries. Reported stolen last year.”

Roy sighed. “I may regret asking this, but what’s a quantum manifold?”

Felicity and Curtis exchanged glances, simultaneously doing the universal hand thing for _you or me_ (Curtis got first dibs).

“You’d need a PhD in advanced quantum physics to accurately explain the manifold,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “But basically, it causes quantum fluctuations. Combined with a maximum energy level, it could cause a collision between multiple quantum fields, effectively —”

“—causing a rupture between the planes,” Felicity continued, reading the varied expressions of confusion on everyone’s faces. “ _Very_ bad stuff. But — silver lining — completely unworkable as a conventional bad guy weapon because you’d need a power source big enough to generate said huge amount of energy, and something to stabilize the reaction. Unless you — bad guy _you,_ I mean — wanted to die in a really painful, vaporized-upon-contact way. Which wouldn’t really be much of a bad guy plan.”

“ _Cool_ ,” someone said.

Felicity realized they’d all been talking in mostly-darkness and slammed the lights back on. Everyone blinked from the sudden change in brightness, a moment punctuated by the salt falling noisily back to earth, _plink-plink_ -ing every which way across the candle-wax and dried blood.

The latter of which seemed to be Oliver’s main concern as he stepped out of the elevator, followed by his borderline hottie of a teenage son (an observation that was in _no_ way creepy). “I see we’ve all been busy,” he said, looking past the computers to find his mystic-ish friend. “John, didn’t you and I have a conversation about the use of blood in magic rituals?”

“If memory serves, Oliver, and it always does, that conversation pertained to _human_ blood,” Constantine said, who was thankfully wearing pants again, though half-shirtless. “Sheep’s blood, mate. Makes for decent scrying, and it gets the job done. I know a good butcher.”

“God, I’ve missed this place,” Connor muttered.

Felicity hopped out of her computer chair to do what she did best — affectionate and slightly wordy greetings, sheep’s blood notwithstanding. “ _Connor_ ,” she said, but hesitated before she held out her arms. “Are you too old for hugs?”

“Nah,” he said, and hugged her with a grin. “Hi, Felicity.”

Oliver shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

“Don’t be jealous — I’m naturally lovable,” Felicity said, over Connor’s shoulder. “You’re so _tall_. What are they feeding you at the crime lab? Growth hormones?”

“Can’t tell. Cisco said he’d hunt me down if I ratted him out,” Connor answered, in a remarkable display of Queen-patented humor. “I also have a stash of twin-sized costumes you guys have to sign for, or they’ll dock my pay.”

Felicity eyed the duffel with mild trepidation. “I thought Cisco was kidding.”

Oliver kissed the side of her head, not-so-subtly tugging her back towards him. “I’m sure we all hoped he was.”

Felicity knew what he was doing, but she let him wrap his arms around her waist anyway, watching as Connor received the obligatory embarrassing hugs from his extended family, along with a somewhat alarming arm slap from his uncle Roy.

“So what’d I miss?” Connor said, shaking his hand as though it stung after fist-bumping Diggle (Felicity had been there). “What’s with the blood and guts?”

There was a pause, because everyone — and Felicity did mean _everyone_ — knew Oliver’s position on involving his children in League business. Thea was the first to break the unexpected tension, and she did it by reaching over and swiping the _Big Belly_ bag from Oliver.

“It can wait, right?” she said. “A night of crimefighting calls for some greasy takeout. Who’s hungry?”

* * *

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” Felicity commented, suture and tweezers in hand, “but _you_ are the master of the subtle deflection. You might as well slap a _Chuck E. Cheese_ sticker on Connor’s back and put him in a corner to play.”

Oliver adjusted the bloodstained towel resting on the edge of the tub. “He’s sixteen,” he said evenly. “I just don’t want him getting involved in something he didn’t sign up for.”

“Because no kid wants to see his dad be a superhero,” she returned. “I know you don’t want him to become a vigilante, but that’s not the same as totally excluding him from what you do.”

She pulled the thread taut and Oliver winced. “Stings,” he muttered, in answer to her questioning look.

Felicity softened, gently tipping Oliver’s arm up so she could see the stitches more clearly. She was by no means an expert, but years of patching up Oliver and the team meant that she knew her way around emergency wounds. Bullets were great at tearing through soft tissue and chipping bone, but at least they didn’t come back for second helpings. Dog bites were messy by nature and bruised like hell, a scientific fact that even Oliver’s impressive musculature was not immune to, since the skin around the wound was already turning a gorgeous plum-ish color.

“Maybe we should rethink the _no sleeves_ concept,” she said, closing a small tooth mark with another stitch. “You can’t do those shirtless campaign photos like this.”

Oliver laughed quietly. “Makes it easier to move,” he said. “Every benefit has a tradeoff.”

Felicity raised an eyebrow. “That’s one way to spin being bitten by a dog.”

“ _Big_ dog,” Oliver corrected, and Felicity laughed too, kissing his freshly-showered hair.

“Almost done here,” she said. “You’ll get a bigger kiss when I’m finished.”

Oliver nodded, easing his torso back to rest against the wall. “I don’t mind. Sorry I’m getting blood in the tub.”

Felicity barely batted an eye at the dubious stains down the inside of the white tub. “Used to it,” she said. “Good thing I have small hands, or this bathroom would be looking like the shower scene in _Carrie_ right about now.”

“You always do a good job.” Oliver’s knuckles rubbed soothingly up her back. “Even though you’re afraid of needles.”

Felicity shuddered, trying not to think about the immediate squelchiness of hooking a pointed object through torn skin. “Don’t remind me.”

Oliver continued to rub her back as she worked. Felicity stole a glance at him. “Age quibbling aside,” she said, “it’s really nice to have Connor here. He’s gotten so big. But not — like — _jock-big_ , you know? Healthy big. Track-athlete big. Should I stop saying _big_?”

Oliver chuckled. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if he gets taller than me. I still remember when he was too short to reach for the top of the fridge.”

“Well, you still have Roy,” she said reasonably. “He’s _definitely_ not getting any taller.”

“And Tommy, and Hazel,” Oliver added. “Until they grow up too.”

The surgical scissors flashed as Felicity snipped the last suture. “ _Don’t_ ,” she said dangerously. “I have a theory that if I pretend puberty is just a fluke, I’ll have my two babies forever.”

Oliver leaned forward and nudged her shoulder with his forehead. “If it didn’t work for global warming, it’s not going to work with our kids.”

Felicity nudged him back. “You don’t know that. Hazel and Tommy definitely defy normal kid behavior. Who knows? We might be the first parents ever to have kids that skip puberty.”

Oliver looked good-naturedly resigned, as if he knew better than to argue with her. “Connor looks so much like my mother. He has her nose — her chin — I just…”

He trailed off, and Felicity paused in the middle of bandaging his arm. “Just…?” she prompted, even though she already knew the answer.

“Sometimes I wish she could have met him. All her grandchildren,” Oliver said, and lifted his shoulders, the smallest smile on his face. “She’s missing all this.”

If Felicity didn’t know Oliver any better, it would have been reassuring. But she did, and it was a helpless gesture that made her heart ache. So she lifted a hand to Oliver’s face and cupped his cheek, trying to catch his eye. “Do I need to give you _The Talk_? The one where I tell you it’s not your fault, and that you can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders even though I know you’re going to try?”

Oliver met her gaze with a faint smile. “Not this time.”

Felicity opened her mouth in an exaggerated (but silent) _O_. “I don’t want to be too optimistic here,” she teased, “but I think some people might call what you just did _progress_. Bad prognosis?”

Oliver’s almost-smile widened. “Just in time for Justice Day,” he said softly.

Felicity bit her lip, because she wanted to choose her words carefully, and she didn’t want her natural affinity for verbal slip-ups messing with Oliver’s newfound ability to see rationally when it came to the issue of guilt.

“I love you, Oliver, and I know — I know we all have people we wish we could see again,” she whispered. “But some things we can’t change, not even with all the Lazarus Pits in the world. The best we can do…is honor them and make them proud, and I want you to remember, Oliver — your family would be _so_ proud of who you are today.”

The corners of Oliver’s eyes crinkled in a smile, and he bent to kiss her softly on the mouth. “Our family.”

“For them,” she agreed, holding him close. “So don’t _regret_ what you can’t change. You’re always saying how Justice Day is about something bigger and better, and you’re right. It’s about honoring the people who made the Justice League what it is and the things we stand for. One of them is love — the kind of love that drives us to do what we do, every day. Remember our family, and honor them. Do you understand?”

Oliver smiled, but his expression turned thoughtful as he stroked her cheek. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Felicity.”

It was her turn to press a kiss into his hand. “You won’t have to find out,” she promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constantine still cracks me up. Damn you, NBC. Why you cancel the shows I like???!


	9. Happy Justice Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've been away for a while, but school's been crazy busy. You know the drill :)

“Spartan, you have incoming,” Curtis reported, and kicked back on his rolling chair to reach the opposite side of the console. “Arsenal — _whoa_ —”

There was a muffled thud, and Felicity glanced over her shoulder to check that Curtis hadn’t rolled straight off the dais (sadly, _not_ a first) during the multitasking effort. He waved one-handedly, massaging where the table edge had poked him in the ribs with the other. “Sorry, mild slippage,” he wheezed. “Your cat-burglar’s using the rooftops. Stay in pursuit, Arsenal.”

It was a busy night, even by Justice League standards. Felicity barely looked at the screen lined up with suspicious B&Es happening all across the city and swiveled back to the few that she was supervising. “Red Arrow — what’s your status?” she asked.

“I don’t — know — what — the — technical — term — is —” Thea sounded like she was in the middle of something, probably engaged in some fisticuffs with a burglar who was (shockingly) not happy that a red-leathered archer was after him. “ _Two seconds!_ ”

“I can wait,” Felicity said, because she’d spotted something else that needed her attention.

Connor had surreptitiously inched closer to a free computer during the commotion, his fingers creeping towards the keyboard for some unsupervised work. With a well-practiced push of her chair, Felicity wheeled over and tugged him by the front of his shirt into a free seat beside her. “That is a triple-encrypted workstation,” she said, with her hand over the mic. “You are _not_ using it to Tweet.”

“I could help,” Connor offered. “You’re chasing down all the burglars in the city for your meta, right? I could scan the frequencies for tripped alarms like you taught me.”

As much as Felicity wanted to encourage the combination of computer literacy and crimefighting, she didn’t want the inevitable Angry-Face that Oliver would make if he found out that his son was doing actual League stuff, despite express Angry-Face words to the contrary.

“That’s a really sweet offer, Connor,” she said, and pointed him towards one of the consoles. “But I think Cisco installed _Flappy Bird_ on that when he was here — maybe you could try beating his high score?”

Connor gave her the same look she gave the TV guy when he tried to explain (wrongly) how satellite channels worked. “Really? You can’t even pretend to give me busywork?”

Felicity raised her hands in a _don’t shoot the messenger_ way. “Take it up with your dad — I’m just trying not to rock the boat.”

“Okay, counter-offer. I’ll sit here and sulk,” Connor said, and folded his arms.

“Sulk away,” Felicity agreed, just as there was a crash on the other end of the line, like the scuffle had ended with someone being thrown into a row of trash cans. “Red Arrow, everything okay?”

“Target subdued,” Thea panted. “Also — don’t know what the technical term is — but the glowy-thing Constantine gave me isn’t glowing.”

“I think that _is_ the technical term for mystical-mojo,” Felicity muttered. “If the thing isn’t glowing, it means he doesn’t have any of that shadow doohickey-ness. Restrain and leave for SCPD. Next suspect’s already lined up.”

“Copy that. Headed there now.”

“Oracle —”

“ _Coming._ ” Felicity rolled her chair to another screen, wondering if she was imagining the dizziness, or if she was just rusty with the three-ways (so glad the team didn’t have a mind reader). “GA and Constantine, your Phantom Phil’s on the lower east quadrant, _and_ …”

Felicity used the dramatic pause to flick through a few corner street cams until she found what she was looking for. “ _Bingo_. Getaway vehicle. Which has a Queen Industries user interface. Should I remote-disable, or do the both of you — as they say — _fancy_ a bit of a challenge?”

“Queen’s English isn’t for you, love,” Constantine said, in response to the accent. “Could you tell your husband to slow down? He’s looking a bit too eager for our light-fingered friend.”

“The sooner we find out whether it’s our meta, the sooner we end this,” Oliver interjected, all growly and Green Arrow-serious. “But really — Phantom Phil?”

“I used a Bandit Name generator I found online,” Felicity said, a little hurt. “It was either that or _Da Pinchi_.”

“Mm-mm.” Connor shook his head, still in adolescent sulk mode. “Cisco’s better with the names.”

_Shut up_ , Felicity mouthed, and he smirked. “Jump that fire escape and you should be right on top of him, GA.”

Metal rattled in the background and she counted silently in her head. _Three. Two._

There was a terrified yelp which left very little to the imagination, namely the natural response of a fully-grown man who’d realized exactly what he’d gotten himself into. “What the _f_ —”

Felicity lunged for the controls and took the call off speaker just in time to evade what sounded like a string of vicious profanities. “Sorry,” she muttered, to no one in particular.

Connor was using his heels to rock his chair from side to side, looking nothing short of _chuffed_ , as Constantine would have said. “Does he kiss the warden of Iron Heights with that mouth?”

Felicity waited for what felt like an appropriate number of seconds before she gingerly transferred the call to her earpiece.

“—bloody made my job a little more difficult, didn’t you?” Constantine said, sounding both winded and irritable. In other words, just fifty percent less like his usual self. “You just had to go swinging your bloody bow and knock him out cold. Now I’m gonna have to use a spell to wake the old sod.”

“I didn’t _knock_ him out, John,” Oliver snapped back. “He fainted — while you were taking your time to get here.”

Felicity could see Constantine shaking his head anyway. “Apologies mate, I must have missed the lesson on how to be a sodding marathon runner while I was mastering the arcane secrets of the great magicians themselves. Now _if_ you please, step back and let me ask this man a few questions.”

“ _Oliver_ ,” Felicity said, sensing his inevitable retort. “Easy. It’s been a long day.”

Oliver grunted. “No luck with the others?”

“Would have told you if there was,” she pointed out. “And I know this puts the _un_ in _unhelpful_ , but at least we’ve put some criminals behind bars. That’s why we do this.”

Oliver sighed heavily. “None of them are as dangerous as our meta. We’re not getting to the problem here, and tomorrow —”

“ _Tomorrow_ has nothing to do with whether we catch this guy — or girl — or not. Remember what you promised me about Justice Day?”

There was a pause. “I do,” he said. “Remembering family.”

“That’s the spirit,” Felicity said, and glanced at her phone. “I think it’s almost time to call it a night. Do you guys want to wrap this up? You could take a hot shower…maybe _sleep_. We could squeeze in a few hours before the kids come busting in for a wakeup call.”

“I’ll swing by the SCPD first, make sure the perps are in custody,” Oliver said, and softened. “Love you.”

Felicity smiled. “Love you too. Get back soon.”

The call ended, and she switched over to police communications, making sure there were pickups headed to the tagged locations before she swung back around.

Connor — in stark contrast to his earlier resoluteness — was playing _Flappy Bird_ on a triple-encrypted workstation. Which would have been fine, except it was with a frown not unlike his dad’s when he was doing some serious thinking.

“Hey,” she said, nudging his chair. “Brood any louder and you’ll get a line between those eyebrows. What’s going on?”

“Trying to flap this bird to freedom,” Connor answered, not looking at her. “It keeps dying by brain trauma.”

Felicity pulled up next to him. “Yeah, that happens,” she agreed. “Drives you crazy, doesn't it?”

That got her a sidelong glance. “Nice try.”

“Is it a girl?” Felicity leaned a chin on her hand. “Or guy — whatever you’re into. Is it love? Is it bad?”

Connor snorted. “Stop.”

“Don’t make me run through the list of embarrassing teen problems,” she threatened (nicely). “I have a _very_ vivid imagination and the ability to squeeze a lot of words from a small amount of oxygen, so you’d better —”

“ _Okay_ , okay,” Connor said, and paused the game. “Jeez. It’s not a problem — I just…don’t get it.”

Felicity waited for more information. “About… _Flappy Bird_? It’s a cartoon bird and you try not to flap it into a wall, Connor.”

He rolled his eyes. “Not about the game. It’s about my dad — because I _don’t_ understand why he won’t let me do what he does.”

“Connor…”

“It’s true, and you know it’s true,” he interrupted, before she could do the diplomatic denial. “He shuts everything down if anyone _talks_ about the Justice League in front of me, but he started training uncle Roy when he was my age —”

“—Roy was a little older than sixteen,” Felicity clarified, “and a _lot_ better at picking pockets than you are —”

“—aunt Thea, uncle John, you — his whole family’s in the Justice League with him. I don’t understand why he doesn’t want me to learn. It’s like he doesn’t trust me, or something. Like I’m not good enough to do what he does,” Connor finished, and went back to playing the game, hitting the keys harder than was probably necessary.

“I know I sound like a whining kid, but it sucks. I want to learn, and he acts like it’d be the worst thing in the world if I did.”

“He taught you how to fight, Connor. He wouldn’t have done that if he thought you weren’t good enough to learn,” Felicity said, trying to catch his eye. It was harder than it sounded — Oliver’s offspring had inherited his ability to avoid visual contact when brooding.

“Your dad _loves_ you,” she reasoned. “Trust me, I know what he’s like when he doesn’t think someone’s good enough. This isn’t it. He just…he just wants you to choose for yourself. To see what’s out there. He doesn’t want you to be like him because you think it’s the only option there is.”

Connor chafed at his forearm, which Felicity thought was somewhat related to the fact that he’d chosen to wear long sleeves in late summer. Maybe it was his nervous tic, in the vein of his father’s reflexive finger-chafing.

“I’m not stupid — my school doesn’t give out brochures telling people to make _Vigilante_ their career path,” he muttered. “I know what I’m getting myself into.”

“What you’d _be_ _getting_ yourself into,” Felicity corrected gently, but Connor ignored the distinction.

She started to pat his arm, but stopped when he flinched. “Okay,” she said carefully. “Okay. Look, I’m not going to tell you that your dad always handles his family becoming vigilantes in the best way. He’s lost a lot of people, more than anyone ever should, and that makes him…protective. _Very_ protective of the people left in his life. But if it’s your choice — it’s your choice, you know? Just make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, and _don’t_ go at it alone. Your dad made that mistake when he first started out, and it almost got him killed.”

Connor turned around at that, finally looking her in the eye. “He met you and uncle John.”

Felicity nodded. “He did, and not to toot my own horn — or John’s — but we turned out to be two of the most important people in his life. That’s what happens when the right people come together for the right reasons, so don’t force it. Wait until you’re ready.”

Connor smiled a little. “Thanks, Felicity. And, um…” He ducked his head, rubbing his sleeve again. “Could you…maybe _not_ tell my dad yet? I want to…think about it.”

Felicity got up and stood behind his chair. “Only,” she said, curling her arms around his shoulders in a bearhug, “if you stay still for the next five seconds.”

“ _Gahhhhh_ ,” Connor pretended to flail for help. “I’m so trapped.”

“Tough cookies, mister,” she laughed. “You’re a hugger just like your dad.”

* * *

As it was after most nights on duty at the Watchtower, Felicity barely remembered falling asleep. Work, plus parenting, plus _other_ work, and parenting again meant that falling facedown on her pillow was the period at the end of a very, very long eighteen-ish-hour sentence.

Until the inevitable wakeup call.

Felicity was jolted awake by the sound of a slamming door. Despite prior experience, she was still groggy during the short prelude of sprinting footsteps, their bedroom door bursting open _a la_ someone kicking it down, and a shrieking leap, ending with a very, _very_ solid weight on her back. “Mommy, mommy, _mommy-y-y-y-y_ ,” Hazel said, punctuating each _-y_ with a two-handed shake. “S’morning. You said we could wear our costumes and go to the park.”

Felicity groped blindly behind her until she found her daughter’s hand. “Okay, monster,” she said, in a sandpaper voice. “Why don’t you go see if daddy’s awake?”

Hazel pulled on her finger, in the vein of _nice try_. “Tommy gets daddy. I get to wake _you_ up.”

Felicity suppressed a groan into her pillow. Even her own children knew which parent was going to be the stickler at rolling out of bed. “Okay, baby. Mommy’s up — mommy’s up. Go…go brush your teeth.”

“Okay!” Hazel was off, though judging by the shifting covers, Tommy was a little slower.

“ _Morning mommy, morning daddy_ ,” he whispered, and she felt a wet kiss on her exposed cheek.

_Gah — cute._ Even though they’d woken her up at a totally inhuman hour (she guessed), it was biologically, mentally, emotionally impossible to get anywhere close to mad. If there was a record, and if anyone was interested, Felicity blamed Oliver for passing on the adorable gene.

Hazel was long gone, so Tommy padded off by himself — no sound of a closing door, because kids were pre-programmed against closing doors. Or open drawers at perfect _collision-with-hip_ height. Felicity waited until she heard the water start running somewhere in the house before cracking an eyelid. She was face to face with their nightstand clock, which still exercised its glow-in-the-dark function because the blackout curtains were drawn across the windows.

_Six-fracking-thirty._

Felicity suppressed another groan and rolled onto her side, reaching in the general vicinity of Oliver’s side of the bed. “Are you up?” she mumbled.

Non-committal grunt from Oliver, who was on his stomach.

“I have an honest question — and I really want an honest answer,” Felicity said hoarsely. “But do you think our days of waking up without semi-human assistance are completely and utterly _finito_?”

Oliver opened his eyes and looked at her across the pillow. “Our kids are human?” he asked.

Felicity had to laugh. She had to. “You’re funny,” she whispered, in her unsexy sandpaper voice. “I _think_ that’s why I married you.”

Oliver nodded sleepily and reached for her under the covers. “Mm,” he muttered, cuddling up to her with his head on her chest. “I married you for the money.”

Felicity rubbed her ankle up the side of his bare leg. “Keep talking, mister, and that whole _no-sex_ thing’ll keep running by itself.”

“Mm-mm,” he said firmly, his breath tickling her collarbones. “That ends today.”

Felicity looked down at him. “You’re confident.”

“I have the strength of thirty-eight years behind me.” Oliver’s eyes flickered open again. “ _Nine_ of them were as a mature, functioning adult.”

Felicity laughed again and gave him a little squeeze. “So, does a mature, functioning adult get up to make his wife coffee, or does he stay under the covers to fool around?”

Oliver rubbed his stubble up and down her chest, making Felicity squirm. “I’ll start the coffee,” he promised. “Just…two seconds. S’feels nice.”

“C’mere.” Felicity tugged at his t-shirt until they were face to face. “Happy Justice Day.”

Oliver kissed her again, this time for real. “Happy Justice Day.”

* * *

“You know I offered to drive, right?” Connor said from the backseat, a suggestion that went largely unconsidered by the adult passengers. “I mean — a minivan is a little _Soccer-Mom_ -y, but I’m not picky.”

Felicity took a left. “I hope you don’t mean me,” she said, not taking her eyes off the road. “Because I’m pouring the lemonade later and I don’t think you want anything extra in your cup.”

“I retract my previous statement,” Connor coughed.

Oliver glanced over his shoulder. “How’re the shoelaces, sweetie?”

“Left — left over right — ears — behind —” Hazel muttered, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration while she attempted to tie her shoes. “Behind — behi — _oops_.”

The knot flopped loose again, and Hazel pouted, holding a green and red string in each hand. “I hate shoelaces.”

Accustomed to his daughter’s strong opinions, Oliver diplomatically refrained from commenting on the lopsided knot. “I thought you wanted to wear your big girl shoes to the park?” he prompted.

Hazel kicked the air in frustration. “They go with my costume,” she said, already tugging at her laces for a determined second try.

Connor — helpfully — snapped a picture of his little sister dressed as a green archer and went straight back to texting. “Fight the power, Nutella. Let me know if you forget the bunny ear trick.”

The old pair of glasses Tommy had borrowed from Felicity kept slipping down his nose. “ _Connor_ ,” he whispered. “You’re not wearing a costume.”

“Sure I am, Ace,” Connor pulled on the hem of his plain white shirt, showing Tommy the bat wings he’d drawn with a sharpie. “I’m the Batman… _’s_ friend.”

Tommy’s glasses were hanging past his ears like a beard, but he was too preoccupied to notice, completely wide-eyed at the mention of Gotham’s vigilante. “You know Batman?”

Oliver and Felicity managed to shoot Connor simultaneous warning looks, wordless cautions that got them an eye-roll in return. “State secret, Ace,” he whispered, and settled the glasses back on Tommy’s nose. “Eat your vegetables and I’ll tell you sometime.”

“We should have asked Cisco to make you a costume, Connor,” Oliver suggested, as a hasty change of subject. “I’m surprised he didn’t offer.”

“Nah,” Connor said lightly. “Green washes me out. Black’s better for urban camouflage anyway.”

“That’s what he said,” Felicity muttered, and everyone raised their eyebrows. “Barry said — about the Arrow — you know what I mean.”

“Speaking of Barry —”

“—uncle Barry.”

“— _uncle_ Barry,” Connor amended, “when’s he running over?”

Another warning look because of the twins.

“Central City’s doing their own Justice Day hoopla, but everyone’ll be here by tonight,” Felicity said, turning towards the park entrance. “What _we_ have to worry about…is finding a place to park.”

“Ah, something superheroes _can’t_ fix,” Connor said, leaning back in his seat. “You should use that for your next campaign ad.”

* * *

Oliver handed the twins’ brightly colored backpacks to Connor, who was — somehow — still texting, despite Tommy hanging onto his back and Hazel yanking at his hand, showing every sign of wanting to bolt ahead in the crowded park.

“Be careful, okay?” he said. “Connor. Connor, can you hear me? _Be_ —”

Connor shoved his phone out of sight and took the backpacks with his free hand. “ _Yes_ , dad, I will do the exact opposite and take them to Mexico for donkey steroids and margaritas,” he said. “Or did you just want me to _be careful_?”

“That would be very nice, thank you,” Oliver answered, ignoring the obligatory sarcasm. “Just hold onto your brother and sister for two minutes — once Donna and Quentin meet us, you can have some free time.”

“You make it sound so _fun_ ,” Connor said, and gave his makeshift backpack a shake. “So, _monsters_. Ready to ditch these guys?”

Tommy giggled from his perch on Connor’s back, oblivious to the fact that his glasses had gone lopsided.

“Ya!” Hazel said, and grinned up at Oliver. “Sorry, daddy.”

Oliver thumped his chest, miming hurt. “Stay with Connor, okay?” he said, adjusting Tommy’s glasses for him. “Keep an eye out for grandma and grandpa. Don’t —”

“— _run off_ ,” the twins chimed in unison. “We know.”

“They _know_ , dad,” Connor echoed, already starting their uphill progress towards the picnic spot. “Unclench, okay? It’s a holiday.”

Oliver watched until they were halfway up the grassy hill before turning back to help Felicity unload the supplies, even though he couldn’t quite resist a few backward glances.

The combination of a public holiday and seemingly every kid being in costume had his hyper-concerned tendencies mapping out a plan in the event of Hazel or Tommy getting lost, along with the closest exits and likely places to stash a kidnapped child.

A thought process interrupted by a well-aimed slap to his chest.

“Ow,” he muttered, massaging the place she’d hit.

Felicity was unapologetic. “I can hear your little worry-spiral,” she said, in the middle of her own wrestling match with the oversized picnic basket in the trunk of the car. “It’s okay to switch off on a public holiday, you know. Besides, every kid’s wearing a costume. They won’t be able to tell which one to snatch.”

Oliver knew she was joking, but he still shot her an unamused look. “I can’t believe we let them out of the house dressed like that,” he said, sliding the basket from the trunk.

Felicity grabbed the stack of folded blankets from him. “I think it’s _cute_ ,” she insisted. “Though I have to admit — not one hundred percent sure who they’re pretending to be.”

Oliver looked towards the hill again, trying to make out his children. “That makes two of us. Hazel specifically told me she’s not the Green Arrow —”

“— _ouch_ ,” Felicity winced.

“I know. I don’t know if I should feel insulted.” Oliver squinted into the distance. “Tommy’s wearing a costume? Isn’t that a t-shirt?”

“I believe the industry term is a _Ramon_ ,” Felicity said grandly. “Cisco printed him a bunch of computer genius t-shirts, and Tommy borrowed the old glasses I left in the study — thank _god_ I caught him and took the lenses out first. My prescription’s no joke, he could have ended up blind.”

Oliver frowned. “So he’s dressing up as Oracle.”

“No idea,” she answered, slamming the trunk shut. “I tried to tell him that Oracle doesn’t have a costume, but he was already walking away with my glasses.”

“So our son’s as stubborn as you are.” Oliver took Felicity by the waist and nuzzled at her hair. “No surprises there.”

Felicity nudged the side of his head. “That was a missed opportunity to pitch a few costume ideas,” she whispered. “I thought you were going to suggest something in leather.”

“Leather? Really?” Oliver said, playing along. “Doesn’t sound like you. I still remember that MIT sweatshirt you wouldn’t stop wearing when you were pregnant with the twins.”

Felicity glanced down at her shorts and button-down. “Fair point,” she conceded. “But I’ve _really_ been trying to work on my nonexistent abs. You sure you can’t picture me in a catsuit?”

Oliver groaned into her neck. “ _Don’t_. We’re in public.”

“Oh-ho, Mr. No-Sex-For-a-Week, am I making things hard for you? _Hard_ being the operative wo—” She never got to finish, because Oliver ducked and tossed her over his shoulder with ease.

“Any last words?” he asked.

Felicity was breathless from laughing, hanging upside down with her head somewhere near his elbow. “Oh, because this is _really_ going to make your little — and by little, I don’t mean _little_ — problem go away,” she pointed out.

Oliver considered it. “No harm in trying,” he said gamely.

She gave him a pinch somewhere above the thigh. “Good to know all that salmon ladder isn’t going to waste. And just BTW, don’t forget to lift with your knees.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This comes massively late, but I wrote this out ages ago and I'm not going to waste it :P  
>  Thoughts on 4x13:   
> \- AGAIN, there is no way Nyssa can’t beat Malcolm by herself. Like seriously.  
> \- Laugh-Out-Loud moment of the episode (and to quote Felicity, that is a competitive field): Laurel asking Nyssa, “how can you be so selfish?” (WHO WRITES HER LINES????!)  
> \- I still skip all the flashbacks.  
> \- Malcolm is craaaaaaaazy. But good on Oliver for fixing his mess, even though said mess could easily have been avoided if he’d buddied up to Nyssa instead of Malcolm-da-Psycho-Merlyn in the first place.  
> That being said, Malcolm telling Oliver he’s handsome but not especially bright killed me. What killed me more was the straight-faced: “in deference to good taste, we shall forgo the removal of shirts.” *Dies of laughter*  
> \- Go Nyssa. Go find Sara on Legends of Tomorrow.  
> \- Quentin arresting Felicity’s dad shouldn’t be funny, but it is. [Reads him his rights] “Oh, and BTW, I’m dating your ex-wife.” BURN.


	10. No Rest For the Righteous

“Thanks, mom,” Tommy said, hitching the glasses back up his nose while Felicity poured him lemonade.

She ruffled his sweaty hair, a gesture which served the dual purpose of eliciting an adorable squirm, as well as confirming the non-existence of sunburn (expected, given the amount of sunscreen she’d slathered onto her kids). “No problem, sweetie, make sure you drink lots of wa—”

Felicity almost lost her grip on the thermos when she heard the shriek. “Oh my god!” Donna squealed, a few feet away from their picnic site. “My grandbabies look so _cute!_ Come _he-re_!”

“Nana!” Hazel cleared the distance like it was a high school track sprint and claimed first hug, showing no signs of being perturbed by the squealing (they’d been conditioned well). Tommy — despite being considerably less speedy — was nevertheless roped into a gigantic two-armed hug by his grandmother.

In the meantime, Oliver took the tub of potato salad from his father-in-law. “Thanks, Quentin,” he said, at a considerably lower decibel. “Did you have trouble parking?”

Quentin rolled his eyes. “Nightmare,” he grunted, but the default thunder-frown softened at the sight of his (step)daughter. “Hi, Felicity. Sorry we’re late.”

Felicity stood on her toes to hug him. “Hey, you. No costume?”

Quentin scoffed. “Thought I’d let your mom handle it this year,” he answered. “She’s plenty enthusiastic for the both of us.”

“I can see that,” Felicity agreed, eyeing her mom’s Justice League t-shirt while also endeavoring to ignore the length (or lack thereof) of the accompanying super-short shorts. “Hungry?”

“Starving.” Quentin examined the spread on the picnic blanket. “Did you make the crab thing?”

Oliver scooped up the untouched tupperware. “I made the crab thing,” he confirmed. “Extra horseradish.”

Felicity sometimes wondered if the old-timey mafia movies had oversold the effect of cash bribes and indecently expensive dinners, when the real way to the Police Commissioner’s heart was with a sturdy twenty-six-ounce Lock&Lock full of a proprietary delicacy known colloquially (AKA within the Queen-Smoak household) as _The Crab Thing_.

Quentin grunted and settled onto the picnic blanket, food in hand. “Have you ever considered doing an episode of _Master Chef_? Y’know, if the mayor thing doesn’t work out.”

To anyone else listening in, the sentence would have sounded like a backhanded compliment from a prickly stepdad, but Felicity prided herself (somewhat) in her ability to tell when Quentin Lance was kidding.

Though a leftover reflex circa Quentin’s _dislike-Oliver-Queen_ days still made her want to give Oliver stealthy shoulder-rub. “ _Ow_ ,” she said. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

In the meantime, Oliver poured everyone drinks with his standard play-along face. “I thought about it, but I’m waiting to see how the whole Justice League thing pans out first,” he said flatly.

Deadpan delivery aside, Felicity still pinched him in the shoulder. The two men exchanged something of a smirk, but any and all opportunity to pry was swept off the table (or picnic blanket) by one affectionate grandmother’s above-average-volume _doting_.

“Urgh, we should have signed my little Hazelnut and Tommy-Tater up for that costume contest. Right, pooh-bear?” Donna said, tottering through the grass with a grandkid in each hand. “Fabulous dress-up is _in_ their DNA. I know I moonlight at the local kindergarten down the street, but I _seriously_ don’t think I’ve seen anything cuter. Not even that Halloween when all the kids were dressing up like those yellow things and saying _banana_ all the time. Your babies are _C-U-T-E_. Right out of their ears.”

Oliver blinked. “I think so too,” he said, turning to Felicity with a slightly bemused look. “Though…not in so many words.”

Donna bent to peck her son-in-law on the cheek. “Still so _handsome_ ,” she sighed, patting him (unnecessarily, Felicity thought) on the chest. “I thought running for mayor was gonna tire you out, but _then_ _again_ , from what Felicity tells me—”

“— _mom_ —”

“—you’ve never really had that problem,” she finished, adding a wink for good measure.

Thank _frack_ Oliver was too experienced to be fazed by the inappropriate comment. “Good to see you, Donna,” he said. “Did you try the recipe I sent over last week?”

As far as distraction-topics went, the culinary arts rated pretty high on the diversionary scale, giving Felicity a chance to set the record straight (while pretending to look for the plate of cookies). “ _I don’t tell her that_ ,” she whispered, and Oliver hastily turned his chuckle into a cough.

Meanwhile, the twins had launched into the Smoak-Queen-patented routine of jumping on/piggybacking onto their favorite family members. Namely, their way, _way_ too indulgent grandpa.

Quentin ruffled Tommy’s hair and chucked Hazel beneath the chin. “Happy Justice Day, you two. Still being good to mom and dad?”

Cue a storm of giggling from the twins.

“That means _no_ ,” Felicity translated. “Be careful with Gramps, okay? He had his knee surgery last month. No climbing.”

Hazel skidded off Quentin’s leg, looking faintly disappointed.

“Now why’d you gotta do that, huh? I’m _fine_ ,” he insisted, scooping Hazel up anyway. “They’re kids — not a ton of cargo. I can pick up a grandkid just fine, and I don’t care what that doctor says.”

Thankfully, the bulk of the persuasion was left to outside forces. Outside forces wearing wedge heels and floral-printed Daisy Dukes. Right on cue, Donna swooped in and planted a big kiss on her husband.

Of the desperately-want-to-unsee variety.

Felicity hacked quietly into her hand. “Happy-barf,” she coughed, while Oliver rubbed her sympathetically on the back. “Happy-barf.”

“I told you to take it easy, Mr. Big, Strong, Police Commissioner,” Donna admonished. “Don’t make me give you a time out in front of the kids.”

“Wait, there’s a kid-inappropriate time out?” Felicity said warily. “Please tell me it’s not—”

It was Oliver’s turn to cough, loudly. Completely oblivious to the question, Donna reclined on the picnic blanket beside Quentin, hoarding an unprotesting grandson in her lap. “Oh, I can’t believe my grandbabies got _taller_ in two weeks,” she said, still cuddling and pinching cheeks. “What are you feeding them? Superhero Kool-Aid?”

“We have sleep pods in the basement,” Oliver said, completely straight-faced. “Gamma radiation really helps to kick-start the growth spurts.”

Felicity snorted, pouring her mom a cup of pink lemonade. “In case the _joke_ part of that sentence went over everybody’s heads, what Oliver means to say is that he cooks. Even slips the occasional vegetable into the lasagna.”

Donna abruptly clapped her hands over Tommy’s ears. “Is that some kind of eggplant innuendo?” she whispered, while their son blinked at them, wide-eyed around the makeshift earmuffs. “Like when people send the banana picture in text messages?”

Quentin choked on a forkful of crab, but Hazel perked up with curiosity. “What’s the banana picture?” she asked. “Mom, why are you red?”

“Who wants more lemonade?” Felicity said, practically falling over Oliver to reach for the cooler.

He sighed, looking at something over her shoulder. “Press,” he said, by way of explanation. “On our six.”

Donna peered down the hill with a hand shading her eyes. “Oh, they won’t bother us while we’re having a family picnic day, right?” she said. “If we ask nicely?”

Felicity didn’t have the heart to tell her mother that of all the adults present, she was probably the only one who actually believed that.

“Looks like Channel-52.” Quentin put down his plate, preparing to stand. “Should I start rattling the handcuffs to scare ‘em off?”

Donna giggled. “Oh, _pooh-bear_ —”

“They’ll leave us alone if they get a quote from Oliver,” Felicity said, before her mom could finish articulating the sure-to-be-inappropriate thought. “Let’s go. If we walk fast, we can beat them before they reach the hill.”

Oliver glanced at her. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I can go by myself.”

Felicity was already on her feet, brushing crumbs off her thighs. “That’s _exactly_ what you said before you punched that paparazzo, according to the LiveJournal page dedicated to your exploits.”

“Really?” Oliver said. “Fifteen years. Statute of Limitations.”

Felicity made her best attempt at a wink. “Come on, handsome. Your adoring public awaits.”

Oliver shook his head and reached for her hand on his way up. “Be good,” he said to the kids. “We’ll be right back.”

“Ask if anyone wants some lemonade!” Donna said, waving like she was trying to get the attention of faraway ships.

“Is there _anything_ my mother says that doesn’t sound like it came straight from a porno?” Felicity wondered aloud, once they were out of earshot. “ _Not_ — that I have experience with pornography. Acting, and/or writing-directing. Although, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure a sleaze-ball back in Vegas tried to recruit me outside a Burger King, but maybe he just wanted me to be that person who tries to fix the Xerox machine while everyone’s having s—”

“Felicity, as your husband and occasional giver of advice, I should warn you that we’re getting closer to the cameras,” Oliver said in her ear, before she could finish the thought. “But tell me more about that Xerox machine later.”

Felicity slipped her hand behind his back to give him a discreet squeeze (anatomical location redacted). “Always thought you were more of a _show_ kind of guy, Mr. Queen,” she breathed, in her best sultry voice.

Oliver laughed and pulled her to him. “How could I forget?” he murmured.

They pulled apart a little by the time they reached the reporters, but Oliver kept a firm hold of Felicity’s hand the whole time. “Guys,” he said, in a voice she recognized from bedtime negotiations on particularly tenacious Hazel-Days. “It’s a holiday. My family and I just want to enjoy a day at the park.”

“We all got jobs to do, Mr. Queen,” said one of them, brandishing a formidable microphone. “Any comment on Mayor Castle’s recent budget cuts at City Hall?”

“What do you have to say to critics of the Justice Day celebrations?”

“Who’s showing up to the Justice Museum gala tonight? Can you give us a few names?”

“— where —”

“— when—”

 _Yeesh_.

Felicity had never liked the press for a reason. Not just because of the shouted questions, or the retina-burning flashes (the sun was out strong, what the frack did anyone need a flash for?), but the fact that a reporter or two had their cameras angled towards the children — even at a safe distance away.

“Jill, Max, Toby,” Oliver said, greeting a handful of reporters like they were regulars. “I’ll be happy to answer any queries you may have, so please get in touch with my campaign office. But my wife and I are enjoying some time with our family, and we’d really appreciate it if you could leave it at that.”

“Nothing to see here,” Felicity added. “Unless your definition of _interesting_ is two parents sneaking coffee out of a thermos.”

A ripple of appreciative laughter.

“Just one question, Mr. and Mrs. Queen — if the Green Arrow and Oracle are taking the day off, who’s protecting the city?”

“Starling City has a very capable police force who are on duty seven days a week, public holiday or not. I have total faith in my city, and I know for a fact that they are very good at taking care of themselves. But we’re just a phone call away,” Oliver promised. “We’re always prepared.”

“Sounds like the boy scout motto,” someone suggested.

Oliver laughed. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “I think some of us skipped a few merit badges.”

“So you’re expecting a quiet day?”

Felicity gave Oliver’s hand a _don’t-you-dare-jinx-it-squeeze_ , and he smiled. “I’d rather not risk it,” he answered. “But I _will_ say — with absolute certainty — that I’m not doing any campaigning today. Happy Justice Day, everybody.”

* * *

“And _that_ ,” Felicity said, watching the reporters make their retreat towards the parked news vans, “is how it’s done, people.”

Oliver tugged on her hand to get her closer. “Who are these _people_?” he asked teasingly, showing every sign of wanting to continue the conversation out of the kids’ (supernatural) hearing range.

Felicity obliged by resting her arms on his shoulders, not quite pressing up against him, but close enough for polite viewers at a distance. “Figure of speech, _darling_.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never called me that.”

She dropped the (attempted) sultry look and tugged on his earlobe instead, making him laugh. “Just trying something new. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but my mom’s totally outdoing us in the pet names department. I mean — granted — I don’t exactly see you as the _pooh-bear type_ —”

“Good—”

“— but _hun_ , _handsome_ …it’s all a little… _eh_ , isn’t it?”

“ _Eh_ ,” he repeated, sans the expressive shrug and inflective delivery.

Felicity puffed out her cheeks and gave Oliver a well-aimed pinch below the belt (eliciting another muted _ow_ ). “Maybe I should be looking somewhere in the butt-related area,” she pondered. “How do you feel about _Squish-Cheeks_?”

“I…” Oliver looked over her head, visibly piecing a rejection together “…am _very_ glad that I saved up my vetoes.”

“Really?”

“Veto.”

Felicity wriggled her hips slightly, reminding her husband about the card-holding in the marriage. “You _really_ want to go there?”

Oliver bent his head until their lips were almost brushing. “ _Veto_ ,” he said again, and they laughed.

Felicity was starting to think they should have taken a leaf out of Connor’s book and insisted on some free time, sans kids. “Do you think they’ll notice if we disappear?” she whispered. “I think I saw a nice tree over there. _Very_ botanically interesting. _Super_ private. It’s everything a tree could want, and you should trust me on this, because there was a brief period of time when I envisioned a future for myself in botany.”

Oliver’s arms tightened around her waist. “I want to,” he said. “B—”

“—don’t say _but_ —”

“ _But_ my campaign manager was very clear about where my wife and I can ‘ _go missing_ ’, and suffice it to say a park was not one of those places.”

Felicity raised a finger for silence. “Do you hear that sad whistle noise?” she asked.

Oliver took the hand she’d been using to make a point and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “I’ll make it up to you,” he promised. “You have no idea how much I mean to.”

“Like I said — you’re a _show_ kind of guy,” she said, and they both knew it meant _holy fracking yes_.

But in a classic show of impeccable timing, a family reminder brought them crashing back to earth. “ _Fe-li-ci-ty! Oliver!_ ” Donna called, waving both arms like she was in a safety demonstration for the deaf. “A thingy’s buzzing! A thingy!”

The display probably wasn’t meant to be cute, but the fact that Hazel had joined her grandmother, flopping up and down like an inflatable tube person, made it very hard to be the slightest bit peeved.

Felicity blew out her breath. “Favorite in-law game,” she said. “Find the beeping piece of tech.”

“It’s probably your tablet,” Oliver said. “I stashed it in Tommy’s backpack to keep it out of the sun. Maybe it’s —”

They barely made it half a step before both their phones started buzzing, and they looked at each other.

“Well, that can’t be good,” Felicity said.

* * *

“ _Recognized: Felicity Queen_ ,” the computer intoned.

“A hospital on Justice Day,” Felicity muttered, as the elevator carried her down to Watchtower level. “Just when you thought lowlifes couldn’t get any lower, they find a new sub-sub-basement.”

“I think the better question is — did any of us actually think we’d be getting a day off?” Diggle asked. “Setting up on the east rooftop. Latecomers welcome.”

“Ha-ha,” Oliver said, in response to the jab at his punctuality. “Unlike some of us, I can’t exactly fit my suit and quiver into a ring.”

“You do realize nobody in that _Some_ are actually on this call, right?” she pointed out. “BTW, the Central City super-friends are about twenty minutes out by plane. We could wait for a little high-speed assistance.”

“We can handle things here,” Oliver said, a refusal that was in _no_ way shocking. “Talk to me, Felicity. What do we need to know?”

“Just got to the Watchtower. I’ll hack a few security cameras and see what I can find. Drive safe, okay? Hospitals are apparently _no-no_ areas now.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The elevator doors slid open to the sub-level, but instead of the assistance she’d been expecting, she found a highly unlikely team-up standing in front of her workstation. Namely the casually gothic Sin and the Abercrombie-model-ish Connor.

“ _No_ ,” she said, jabbing her phone (speaker muffled) at the latter. “Go back to the park and be normal.”

“But —”

“Hey, Boss-Lady,” Sin called. “We’ve got updates rolling in from boots on the ground. I tried to log in, but I forgot my password.”

“I’ll get you a new one,” Felicity answered. “And _thank you_ for coming in, my valued, legal-adult-aged, fully-consenting co-worker who’s not going through a rebellious phase.”

Sin squinted at her like she suspected sunstroke. “O- _kay_. Most people just say hi back.”

Connor spun her chair around for her, a gesture at the highest level of ass-kissery (by his standards, anyway). “I have the Justice League on Google Alert,” he explained. “I was skipping stones at the pond when I saw the news. Nothing else, I promise.”

Felicity gave Connor a look, and rolled her chair away from him. “You’re as good at lying as your dad,” she said. “Which is to say — _not_. Sin, what do we know?”

Sin had a vague _caught-in-the-crosshairs_ look on her face, but she shook her head and held up the file. “They thought she was just on drugs or something — sweating, not right in the eyes — they didn’t figure out that she needed a psychologist until she almost strangled a nurse and brained a doctor when they tried to get her hooked up to an IV. Patient didn’t give a name,” she said, flipping the page. “Would’ve been fake anyway.”

“But very real crazy,” Felicity guessed, bringing up the team’s location on the tracking screens, along with her helpful desktop people-search program. “Face doesn’t match the social security number she gave — no shocker there, since she’s using an alias. Let’s see what pops up on the surveillance…hah — _of course_ she’s missing a few marbles from the collection.”

Connor peered at the surveillance footage of said Crazypants doing something to the elevator doors. In eerily bloodstained scrubs and barefoot, no less. “Is that —?”

Felicity transferred the call to speaker. “She’s rigged every entrance to the third floor,” she said. “Duct tape, household wires, looks like something chemical — maybe ammonium nitrate. Think our clown-happy friend in Gotham, except booby-trappier. I’m guessing trip-wires, and they’ll blow everything sky-high if someone so much as turns a doorknob the wrong way.”

Oliver swore under his breath, an expletive echoed by Diggle. Judging by the expression on Connor’s face, Felicity guessed he wasn’t _quite_ learning the lesson she’d hoped he would from the male role models in his life.

“The Joker’s in Arkham,” Oliver said, his voice low and hoarse. “We put him there.”

One of Felicity’s hands was over her mouth, completely out of reflex, and she tasted steel, a knife pressing on her lips, the uneven line of a scar hidden on the inside of her cheek. “I know,” she said finally. “But this is someone else.”

“Hostages?” Diggle asked quietly.

Felicity flicked through the available coverage. “Waiting area. Nurses, doctors…looks like a dozen, more once we factor in the non-mobile patients. SCPD’s cleared the other floors, but twelve hostages and a hell of a lot of patients means —”

“—that we need to defuse the situation,” Oliver finished. “So to speak.”

“Stole the pun right out of my mouth,” she continued. “Spartan, I’m gonna need your bomb disposal expertise on this. Can you _Operation_ the frack out of the crisis?”

“Copy that, but GA and I still need a way into the building. Steady hands aren’t gonna do much if all the entrances are rigged.”

“Well,” Oliver said, in a tone Felicity did _not_ like at all. “Not _all_ of them.”

* * *

“Just a little HR note,” Felicity said. “Once we resolve the hostage crisis with Crazypants, we need to go over a few basics of the English language. Namely — what structural features qualify as actual _windows_.”

Oliver straightened up from his landing, brushing glass chips from his suit. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Behind him, Diggle dropped lightly from the same vent. “Pretty sure this job is giving me claustrophobia,” he said, rolling his shoulders after the constriction of close-quarters crawling. “Good job — rooftop access and air shaft.”

“ _Men_ ,” Felicity muttered, still typing away. “Keep a lookout for tripwires. And in case you’re wondering what that noise is, it’s Crazypants talking to the hostages. Or herself.”

“Yeah, sounds like she’s got a few people rattling around in there,” Diggle muttered, crouched by one of the homemade explosives for an inspection while Oliver watched both ends of the corridor, his bow at the ready.

The overhead lights were flickering, some of them hanging loose from the ceiling and scattering sparks with each slow swing. The linoleum was lit in uneven patches, but Oliver watched as a segment of the wall bloomed white under a passing fluorescent, the surface gleaming with what looked like —

 _Blood_.

“I guess someone wants to get your attention,” Felicity said. “Some hiking trail.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Oliver agreed, scanning the walls for more unsettling additions.

A leering smile dripped from the rigged elevator doors behind them, but it was the arrows that dominated, scrawled on the walls and directing him past the bend at the far end of the hall.

“They’re all connected by the same wire,” Diggle said, following the cable with his fingers. “The trigger mechanism must be hooked up to a power source.”

Oliver handed Diggle a flechette. “Can you disable it?”

“By taking out whatever the bombs are hooked up to, but where —” The wire went suddenly taut in his open palm and darted across the floor like a snake. Oliver tensed, expecting an enemy at their backs, but Diggle stopped him from firing with a raised hand.

“Oracle, does she have something with her? Something connected to wires?”

More typing. “Something on the counter — I can’t really make it out. You think it’s the battery?”

“That’s our best bet,” Diggle agreed. “And after Cupid, who do you think should have the job of keeping her busy?”

Oliver rolled his eyes at the look on Diggle’s face. “All three of us are going to have a talk about the Statute of Limitations once we’re done here.”

“Looking forward to it, GA,” Felicity agreed. “Oh, and in case the graffiti doesn’t scare you, keep your distance. She’s a head-basher.”

* * *

“Maybe it’s the green,” Diggle suggested. “Like waving red in front of a bull. Or maybe the crazies have a thing for Robin Hood.”

Oliver shook his head at Diggle’s commentary and peered around the corner to gauge the hostages’ location. “Maybe _you_ can be the distraction next time, Spartan,” he answered. “Are you in position?”

“Dispensary,” Diggle said. “Get her talking. I’ll fry the switch.”

Oliver fitted a fresh arrow to the string. “Any ideas?”

“Tell her you’re looking for Maid Marian.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Felicity interrupted. “Already cast that role.”

There was a heavy crash, like someone had overturned a gurney, and a voice rose shrilly from the commotion. “I said _stop crying_ , you useless sack of —”

“— _language_ ,” Felicity muttered.

“Blah, blah, blah, I _told_ you to find me the G-man!” she shrieked. “Mr. S wants him, and Mr. S gets what he wants! I shoulda just killed one of you on camera and sent it to that reporter lady on Channel-52!”

“Well, that’s new,” Felicity said. “Any chance you know who Mr. S is?”

“No idea,” Oliver answered. “But I’ve always been better at faces.”

“No pressure, but I think one of the doctors is about to lose theirs if you don’t —”

Oliver gritted his teeth and stepped out from behind the wall, bow raised. “I’m here,” he said. “You wanted me — I’m here.”

The patient was pale from head to toe, bleached hair hanging limply around a deathly white face. The contrast only made the bloodstains on her crumpled scrubs glaringly obvious, five dried smears down the leg that looked like finger marks. Oliver had seen insanity in its varying and many forms. Slade, Helena, Malcolm…but there was something unsettling about her eyes. Something leering, and twisted.

Dangerous.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “Who sent you?”

Diggle slipped silently from the dispensary behind the counter, but Oliver didn’t move.

“Funny you should ask, dart-brain. Boss-man sent me to give you a message, and he said I had to make it worth the G-man’s time.” She held up the bloodstained mallet in her hand. “How’d I do?”

“You don’t have to hurt anyone,” he said, calm and slow. “All you had to do was ask.”

Diggle was at the switch now, working at dismantling the wires.

“Why spoil the holiday?” she laughed. “I know you’ve got friends helping you out, so tell ‘em to _shut up_ and listen. Boss-man wants you to know that _he_ knows you’re predictable. Boring. The kind of guy with no imagination.”

She lifted the hem of her scrubs to show him her ankle, and Oliver tensed.

“Oliver,” Felicity said, her voice tight with tension. “That’s —”

“—yeah,” she said casually, wiggling the leg wound with explosives. “Always have a _Plan B_.”

“Get down!” Diggle shouted, and Oliver saw her finger move to detonate the switch.

The EMP arrow left his bow with a snap, but it was lost in a gust of something bigger. Gold and red flashed in front of Oliver’s eyes, and before he knew it, he was twenty feet from where he’d started, with Diggle beside him.

“What the hell?” Diggle said, neatly summarizing what they’d both been thinking.

Oliver looked back towards the hostages. The patient was passed out on the floor, and someone else was standing over her with the explosives.

Half a year had gone by, but Oliver was still gratified to know that the sight of an old friend could release the tension in his chest.

“You didn’t run all the way here just to do that, did you?” he said, with the beginnings of a smile.

Barry held the bomb gingerly between forefinger and thumb. “Well,” he said modestly. “It’s a holiday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on 4x14   
>  \- I'll be completely honest, I don't remember very much about the episode. The lie drama is giving me fatigue *swoons theatrically*  
> \- Glitter needs to explode in Oliver's face more often.  
> \- Donna and Quentin in the campaign office made me squeamish. Don't get me wrong, they're adorable, but it's like watching parents flirt. *shudder*  
> \- Laurel is still phenomenally bad at the rooftop-scouting. Why the pose. Whaaaai.  
> \- Thea...no. Don't become the next Laurel. Don't become the "character" the writers forget how to write consistently for.  
> \- Yaayyyy Curtis. Felicity's gonna walk again!  
> \- Even if he's Oliver's son, William is waaaaaay too chill about being kidnapped by a strange man.  
> \- That conversation between Laurel, Samantha and Felicity next week is going to be very, very awkward. 4x15 guys. Breakup episode. Nothing good ever happens in episode 15.  
> \- Vixen!!!!! *hearteyes*


	11. Reunion Special

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop. Time flies, doesn't it? Already at one of the weird Arrow hiatuses after the winter hiatus.

“No rest for the wicked, huh?” said Quentin, eyeing the hand-drawn smile on the elevators with wary distaste.

Oliver had been watching Barry disarm the explosives at high speed, much to the appreciation of the assembled bomb squad, and the perpetual disbelief of Diggle, who was something of an expert in IEDs. “ _Wicked_ ,” he repeated, keeping a straight face. “And I thought you were starting to like me.”

Quentin grimaced. “Nah. You and me — we’re like rubber and glue. You’re lucky your kids turned out so cute, or I’d have a real problem faking that I can stand you.”

Oliver cracked a smile. “And the kids?” he asked. “Did you —”

“Don’t worry. Dropped Donna and the twins off at the house. They have their penguin suits lined up for tonight — I hope.”

Oliver blew out his breath, imagining the fight to get his children to shower off a morning’s picnic residue, not to mention squeeze into scratchy black tie for the evening’s gala function. “I’m just glad their grandmother has a sense of humor,” he said, in brief, _brief_ summary.

Quentin grunted his assent. “So I heard you and the lightning bolt are on the fritz,” he said, in a low voice. “Everything okay on that end? Or do I need to refer you to a marriage counselor?”

A part of Oliver wondered just how far the news had circulated within the group, about his reluctance to see Barry post-Kaznia. A part of him was tempted to point out that the Lances had still gotten divorced, valiant efforts of a marriage counselor notwithstanding. But Oliver was acutely aware of Quentin’s ability to make a point with the butt of his police gun, and choose to shake his head instead.

“I think…” he said slowly, “I think…it is.”

Quentin cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

Oliver chuckled at the skepticism, amending his statement accordingly. “It will be,” he said.

“You’re a good kid.” Quentin gave him a shake. “You both are. I’ll see you tonight?”

Oliver nodded. “See you tonight.”

The Commissioner bustled off towards the elevators, joining the officers who were escorting the patient down to transport. Oliver watched him go, before walking over to join Diggle and Barry.

“You okay?” he asked.

Diggle clapped his shoulder. “Hanging in there. You?”

“I think I tore a few stitches,” he answered, indicating the half-healed dog bites in his arm.

“Good thing we’re at a place where no one could _possibly_ do anything about that,” Diggle said dryly. “But we both know who you prefer to play nurse with, and it isn’t me. What about you, Barry? Tired of putting out fires yet?”

Despite being within earshot the whole time, Barry had apparently been playing with the magnetized pen on the reception desk while the two of them talked, and at Diggle’s prompting, he looked around.

Their eyes met.

There was a silence, in which the two men studied each other, as if so much could have changed in the six months that they hadn’t spoken. A part of Oliver still remembered Kaznia like it was yesterday — the cold, the chaos — his friends’ voices in his ear and the hostile fire coming at them from all sides. Nothing they hadn’t done before, except it was — a lesson learned.

Oliver thought he couldn’t trust Barry, that it was the lesson he should have learned sooner. In a way, it was — it was a matter of _trust_. But maybe everything happened the way it did because he hadn’t trusted Barry enough. Enough to treat him as an equal.

A lot of things could change in the span of six months, yet in the strangest, simplest way possible, Barry had just showed him that nothing had — not really. Whatever Oliver’s disagreements with the way he handled things as the Flash, there was something about him that would stay the same, no matter what.

Barry Allen would always have a good heart, and the best of intentions to help the people he cared about.

There were things they still needed to discuss, but for now, it was enough, on today of all days. Oliver was the first to break the pause, and he did it by extending his hand.

“It’s been a while,” he said.

Beside him, Diggle quietly lowered his head onto his hands. “ _For the love of god_ ,” he muttered.

Barry eyed Diggle’s interjection with some amusement, but reached out and grasped Oliver’s hand anyway, if a little hesitant. “I meant to call, but things got…”

“…crazy,” Oliver said. “I know. But I was never good at phone calls anyway.”

Barry ducked his head. “I still remember that message you left me after you missed my birthday — for that thing in Markovia?” he said, and grinned. “It was _terrible_. Like I could _hear_ Felicity holding up your script. That’s why I’m always surprised when I catch one of your campaign speeches on TV, because _no way_ is that the same guy who forgot how to wish someone a happy thirtieth birthday without mentioning death…and _hills_.”

“I told you to delete that message,” Oliver said, trying not to imagine his campaign manager’s face if he ever heard it.

“Nope.” Barry shook his head, practically glowing with mirth. “I kept it.”

Bearing in mind Felicity’s previous warnings regarding the treatment of his friends, Oliver chose to ignore the urge to inflict damage of the arrow-related nature on Barry. “Thank you for showing up when you did,” he said, in summary. “You’ve been missed.”

“You too.” Barry made a motion as if he’d meant to hug Oliver, but stopped short. “Should I wait until you’ve had some champagne…maybe a few shots…?”

“Good instinct,” Oliver said, and leaned a little closer. “They’re still going to card you at the bar.”

Barry laughed. “For real?”

* * *

“Felicity,” Oliver said. “You’re yanking.”

“Am I?” she answered, and gave the suture another wince-inducing tug. “Good. That’s what you get for going in without waiting for backup. Crazypants could have blown you and John sky-high — thank _god_ Barry showed up before the big boom, or I would have —”

“—killed me yourself,” he finished, like it was a well-rehearsed mantra. “Maybe John can do the sutures next time.”

Well in the middle of bandaging up a few bruises of his own, Diggle peered at Felicity’s attempt to salvage her quasi-surgical handiwork from the week before. “Dog bites are messy. You need small hands to patch those up,” he said, and raised his fortifying glass of whiskey in a mock-toast. “Give him hell.”

Oliver fixed a glare on his friend and held out his hand for the glass. “Traitor.”

Diggle obligingly passed him a fresh tumbler of whiskey. “You _assume_ I was on your side in the first place, Green Arrow,” he said reasonably. “I’m an Oracle man, through and through.”

Felicity raised her eyebrows in a _See-I-have-a-Diggle_ kind of way. “Why thank you, Spartan.”

Oliver took a swig and winced. “Not my drink,” he muttered.

“Get used to it.” Diggle sat back in his chair. “Vodka’s for middle-aged women on diets.”

“ _Steady_ ,” Felicity warned, just in case Oliver’s sudden bout of amusement in response to Diggle’s comment threatened to tear his stitches all over again. “So what did you say to Barry? Were you normal? Please say you didn’t shoot him.”

“I didn’t shoot him,” Oliver said. “And I _was_ normal. Barry’s just meeting Iris and Henry at the airport.”

Felicity glanced at Diggle, who made a face. “Two out of three. That boy’s opening line was…” He made a sound that left very little room for a charitable interpretation.

“ _Thanks_ ,” Oliver said.

Felicity pinched her forehead. “God, I can practically hear it. _Barry, I’m not going to hug you and tell you I missed our weekly phone calls_ ,” she growled, in a (she thought) decent imitation of her husband’s Arrow voice. “ _Insert preservation of manly dignity here_.”

“That is _not_ what I sound like.”

“In his defence,” Diggle said, and they both fell silent, waiting. “Based on what I’ve heard about your little husband-and-wife bet, I don’t think Oliver was using his brain up north.”

“Why _thank you_ ,” Felicity said breathily. “I’m very flattered. Weirded out, but flattered.”

Oliver drained the glass in one gulp. “I’m pretty sure I won’t be, no matter how much of this I drink.”

Felicity stuck a hand over his glass before Diggle could do the automatic refill. “Don’t get buzzed before the actual buzz — I need the both of you standing for tonight,” she warned. “I also need my two brainstorming buddies non-inebriated while we figure out what the actual hell is going on.”

The elevator doors pinged, but instead of who they’d (probably) been expecting, it was the team’s visiting adolescent, bearing a gigantic cork board from the local DIY store. “Just me,” Connor said, and stopped at the sight of Oliver’s bloody arm. “ _Dad_ , are you okay?”

Oliver nodded. “Nothing to worry about, Connor. It’s just an old scratch.”

Felicity immediately made him wince with a well-timed tweak of a suture. “Funny how your dad thinks that running headfirst into danger every time is going to somehow make him damage-proof. The gods of war aren’t listening to your sacrifice, Oliver. Slap some brakes on that death wish.”

Instead of taking her (very apt) advice to heart, her husband chose to lean forward and kiss her on the lips. “Sorry I made you worry.”

“ _Aw_ ,” Connor said, in a voice that suggested he thought otherwise. “It’s so nice to see the old people be gross.”

“Am I the only one who’s going to ask about what he’s carrying?” Diggle said, to the room at large.

Felicity wheeled around, bloodied tweezers and needle in hand. “You got it?”

“Printed everything from the office upstairs,” Connor said, and planted the board straight on the table. “Behold, and worship me, for I have done the menial tasks of a summer intern.”

Oliver and Diggle stared at Felicity’s brainchild (manufacturing courtesy of Connor). In the interests of variety (because there was usually so much on the monitors that bringing up the files was a chore), Felicity had opted to use her _Beautiful Mind_ instincts to construct a recap of what they knew so far, making use of notecards and photographs from the database. She’d also seen it as a convenient opportunity to inject Connor’s Justice League fantasies with a healthy dose of reality, because with her being occupied with stitching up her reckless husband, his son actually stood a decent chance of getting to one of the computers for nefarious purposes.

An implicit motivation that seemed to have slipped Oliver’s notice. “You’re using my son as an intern?” he asked, in a tone slightly short of dangerous.

Which was cute, as far as her Intimidation Scale was concerned.

“ _A_ , he volunteered,” Felicity said, and pressed him back into the chair so she could start with the sterile gauze. “And _B_ , that’s what happens when this pair of hands is busy stitching up those muscles, so think of it as my version of the Pavlovian technique. Recklessness, _bad_.”

“I dropped out of freshman psych,” Oliver answered, still glowering at the board. “What’s the string for?”

Felicity snipped off a length of gauze. “Ah. With everything going on with the Shade’s theft-spree, and this _Mr. S_ — worst alias, just BTW — I thought I’d keep everyone up to date on where we are with the tangled web of mystery that is our ongoing project roster. FYI, green is what we know, yellow is _Almost-There_ , and red is unsolved.”

Diggle and Oliver had another one of their (very bromantic) non-verbal exchanges, a silent _you-or-me_ conversation that ended with the former pointing out the obvious. “There’s only red on there, Felicity.”

“No need to hit me when I’m down,” she snipped back. “We’re still playing catch-up. Facial recognition got a hit off Crazypant’s mug shot, so I figured we’d start there.”

Diggle squinted at the Sharpie-lettered name scrawled beneath the photo. “Harley…Quinn,” he read. “We’re sure that’s her real name?”

Felicity glanced at the monitors for a quick refresher on what they had so far. “That’s the name in the GCPD’s database, which is where she usually does her law-breaking. I cross-referenced with the Batcave’s archives to make sure we’re all on the same page, and she’s…unconventional. Graduated from Harvard with a PhD in Clinical Psychology, which — needless to say — means she’s smart. Had a bright future ahead of her…until she joined Arkham Asylum for her residency program, and —”

“—became a resident herself?” Connor suggested.

The adults stared at him.

“What?” he said defensively. “Cisco would have made that _exact_ joke.”

“God, this is gonna be all weekend, isn’t it?” Diggle groaned, as if the prospect of Cisco and Barry’s puns had just occurred to him.

“You’ve been spending too much time at the crime lab,” Oliver said. “So do we know who hired her?”

“At the risk of stating the obvious, we just bagged Dr. Strange, and he has an Arkham connection. Might be too much to hope for, but we could book an interview slot — see what he knows,” Felicity pointed out.

Oliver nodded. “Set it up. Next week.”

“Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure our schedule for today couldn’t get any more packed.” She gave his freshly bandaged arm a pat. “Good as new. _Ish_.”

“What motive would Strange have to hire a nutjob and get her to blow up a hospital?” Diggle asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. We all heard her. She was there to send the Green Arrow a message. Strange experimented on the crazies in the worst asylum on earth and runs black market arms deals — he doesn’t do this.”

Felicity inclined her head, because he had a point. “You’re thinking it’s someone else?”

Diggle exhaled, loudly. “I think…that what we deal with never gets that simple. It might be Strange. But if previous experience is anything to go by…”

“Yeah.” Oliver rubbed Felicity’s shoulders. “I know.”

Felicity sighed. “I miss the days when all we had to worry about were two immature idiots not speaking to each other.”

Oliver gave her a nudge. “When was that _ever_ all we had to worry about?”

“I’m editorializing.”

The elevators pinged again, and everyone got to their feet. “Here we go,” Felicity said.

Oliver kissed her forehead. “Here we go,” he said.

* * *

Felicity could hear what sounded like Barry’s voice through the crack between the doors, talking calmly in a voice she recognized from situations that involved the twins getting anywhere near something superhero-exciting.

“—there’s some dangerous stuff around, so we’re going to walk, okay? Henry —”

“ _Cool!_ ”

Sure enough, a kid-sized shape came flying out as soon as the doors parted, one that collided smack dab into Oliver and Diggle’s legs. “Easy there, buddy,” Diggle said, swinging Barry’s son effortlessly from one arm. “You’re getting faster than the Flash.”

“Ha ha,” Barry said, rolling their bags out from the elevator. “I’m just saving energy. Say hi to everyone, Henry.”

As a parent, Felicity knew how well that request usually went down. (Spoiler alert: not well) Especially since Henry Joseph was without a doubt a West-Allen creation, having inherited his mother’s good looks and his father’s deceptively nerdy stature, not to mention a double genetic dose of born inquisitiveness.

“Did you guys get new costumes? Can I see?” Henry said, seemingly unaware that his legs were still doing their own _Running Man_.

“The kid has priorities,” Cisco said approvingly, even though he was caressing the nearest workstation. “Oh my _god_ have I missed this place. No red carpet? You hurt me.”

Felicity caught Barry’s good-natured eye-roll and laughed. “Used it all up for tonight’s gala. How’s Caitlin doing?”

“She’d be hugging you herself, but she hit a stretch of morning sickness that threw her for a loop,” he explained. “Having a Snowstorm baby’s no joke.”

“Are we calling it that now?” Felicity asked, raising her eyebrows at Oliver.

“I’m guessing not,” he answered, slipping an arm around her waist.

Leaning over the railing surrounding the dais, Connor gave everyone a joking salute. “Non-biological uncles and aunts,” he said. “Happy holiday.”

Oliver gave his son a look, as if to say, _really?_ He was the only one who seemed to mind, since Barry and Cisco saluted him right back, like it was — to them at least — what man-grunts were to actual verbal greetings.

“Oh, and —” Cisco rummaged around in his satchel (which looked like a repurposed US Post Service mail bag) and produced a magazine. “ _Look_ what I snagged at the airport. Someone’s on the cover of _The Starling Journal_.”

The _Queen 2022_ issue had come out a few days before, but with such _fantastic_ friends, Felicity had pretty much heard every joke there was left to offer on the subject, and was acquainted (in intimate detail) with the cover of said issue. Oliver’s photogenic face on the cover, and — cue the part that still gave her the skeevies — she was there too. _There_ -there. Red dress. Makeup. Arm on his shoulder. Magazine. Cover.

“Oh my god,” she said, fighting the urge to whack the magazine out of his hands. “You bought one?”

“Scrapbooking material,” Cisco said, in a tone that suggested _duh_. “Plus, supporting _Queen 2022_. Do you know how many paparazzi I flashed this baby at?”

“As long as that’s the only thing you flashed,” Oliver said flatly.

Felicity was still red up to her forehead and having a mild existential crisis at the thought of her mother procuring and _framing_ said pictures. Which she had. With a lot of screaming.

“You could have called me,” Cisco said, holding the magazine beside his face. “The ladies _love_ this.”

Barry squinted at the pictures (Oliver with his sleeves rolled up, doing the perfect smile) and Cisco, who was — well — _Cisco_. “I don’t know, dude. Seems like the female demographic’s already taken care of.”

“ _Rude_ ,” he said, and turned back to stroke the elevator panel. “Speaking of, I know AIs are just AIs, but ORACLE _knows_ me. Can I borrow her forever?”

“What are you talking about?” Felicity said. “ORACLE runs the mainframe on all the League bases.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same,” Cisco said, still preoccupied with gazing up at the system. “No one talks like she does.”

“What Cisco means is that he’s _very_ lonely,” Barry translated. “And the system _would_ sound like ORACLE if he wasn’t changing it every few weeks. We have a Scottish voice now — no offense to the country — but when there’s a high-speed situation and I have to ask Braveheart Siri to repeat, it doesn’t end well.”

Even Oliver laughed.

“Thanks for showing up when you did, Barry,” Diggle said, swinging Henry (who couldn’t have minded less) from side to side like a backpack. “Good to have you here.”

Iris looped an arm through her husband’s. “That’s my Barry,” she said. “Somehow always makes it in the knick of time.”

“It’s my second superpower,” Barry said modestly. “Besides being chronically tardy.”

“It’s a good superpower,” Oliver added, with a small smile.

Barry beamed like the last thing he’d expected from Oliver was a compliment, and Felicity gave the latter a surreptitious squeeze of the positive reinforcement variety.

For one reason or another ( _cough_ , _Oliver and Barry’s man-feud_ ), it had been a while since the Queens and West-Allens had met up for a double date night, but Felicity still went straight for Iris, per the sequence of _who-hugs-who-first_. “Check you out, Famous News Lady,” she said. “I watch you on TV every night — and _not_ in a creepy way, I promise. Oliver’s always there. Wait, did that make it worse?”

Iris laughed, showing no signs of pulling back on the West-patented squeezy-hug. “So not creepy. Good to see you, Felicity,” she said. “We still need to catch up over margaritas.”

Felicity was utterly in agreement. “I have some benzodiazepine in my bag — I’ll knock the guys out and you can start on the crushed ice.”

Oliver leaned over to kiss Iris on the cheek. “Heard that,” he said. “Hi, Iris. Thanks for coming.”

“Where else would we be?” Iris said, which Felicity took as her cue to greet the elusive speedster in her friend circle.

Barry was already prepped and ready for a catch-up hug, but Felicity — ever endeavoring to surprise — gave him a choice open-palmed slap in the man-pec. “ _Ow_ ,” he said indignantly, looking (in a hilarious yet reassuring way) to Oliver.

As if Oliver could do anything about it. Not while he was observing the exchange with Iris, the two of them visibly amused at Barry’s comeuppance.

“ _That’s_ what you get for not calling unless it’s an SOS,” she said fiercely.

Clearly Barry was expecting another slap, based on the high-pitched noise he made when Felicity proceeded to bear-hug the surprise out of her friend instead. “So happy you came,” she mumbled. “Where’s my giant cookie?”

Barry patted her tentatively on the back. “Henry ate it on the plane,” he joked. “And I thought we agreed on rib sauce.”

“Just checking.” Felicity pretended to measure the top of her head to Barry’s. “Are you getting taller?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” he laughed, all hesitation gone. “I missed you, Felicity.”

“ _Uncle Oliver_.” Henry tugged on his sleeve, his voice low in a _shh-secret_ whisper. “Can I play with Hazel and Tommy?”

Oliver — adorably — dropped his voice to match Henry’s. “They’re back at the house,” he said, and intercepted Felicity’s hint-heavy stare mid-sentence. “Which you are all _very_ welcome to stay in.”

“ _Oh._ ” Barry was already shaking his head, an arm around Iris’s shoulders. “We were just gonna crash in the Watchtower. I mean — they _are_ rooms here for a reason.”

Cisco made a noise of glorious protest. “ _Um_ , turning down a room in a mansion is your business, mister, but I want my own bathroom. So that’s a _hell yes_. Does Raisa still make those double-fudge cookies?”

“Those are good cookies,” Diggle agreed, and Cisco — grinning — stuck his hand out for a fist-bump.

“I’m insisting,” Oliver said, which really did make Felicity proud. As long as she didn’t stop to analyze his possible motivators too deeply ( _cough_ , the sex ban). “Come on. It’s been a while since we were all in the same place, and the Watchtower’s a pretty dangerous place for a kid to run around.”

Barry put his hands over Henry’s adorable ears, ignoring the latter’s protest. “But you guys have a secret lair in the basement,” he whispered.

“ _Secret_ ,” Felicity emphasized. “And the kids aren’t tall enough to work the elevator controls anyway, so I wouldn’t worry. If it helps, I promise I won’t try to make you guys breakfast again.”

Iris turned a thousand-watt smile on Barry, which Felicity hoped was of the _pretty please with cherries on top_ variety, not in remembrance of her (mildly over-toasted) waffles. The exchange lasted for exactly three seconds before Barry caved, and Iris jumped up to kiss his cheek with an excited squeal.

“We’re in!” she said. “Thanks, you guys.”

“Great,” Felicity said, and rubbed her hands together in celebration of an evil plan coming together. “So, drinks?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on 4x15:   
>  LANGUAGE WARNING - about to be some serious profanity down here.  
> \- What even was that episode. What even.  
> \- So much stupid. **So** much stupid. For starters:  
>  \- How is it still a surprise at this point that Malcolm is a fucking, FUCKING liar?????! "Did you tell Darhk about William?" "No." WELL OKAY THEN. I GUESS THERE'S NO REASON TO DOUBT YOU. Oh wait. *hauls out binder 1 of 12 about the times Malcolm has fucking lied like an absolute fucking liar*  
> \- When Oliver was forced to admit the three other people who knew before Felicity did...the plot doesn't cut like a knife, it just sounds even stupider. In what world do Barry and Thea agree to keep this kind of secret from Felicity, and against character development (Looking at you, Dearden) are COMPLETELY FOR IT. WHAT WORLD.  
> \- Ditto Diggle. I'd bitch-slap some sense into Oliver. But nope, OOC stuff.  
> \- Yeesh, Samantha. I know you're worried out of your noggin about William being kidnapped, but there's no need to chew Oliver's head off when he's trying to help you.  
> \- Laurel drama. Awk-ward. Slightly out of place, but I get that they'd want to wrap up loose ends before they kill her off. Though it still looked like Laurel wanted to murder Sam with a spork. Might just be me.  
> \- Vixen was the coolest part about this episode. I will say that right now. But tying back to the "Stupid" point, just because she has a magic totem that lets her channel animal spirits does NOT mean she will be immune to Darhk's telekinesis juju. Ergo, rushing him head on still DOES NOT WORK. *They still tried it* Oh, well then. HOW'D THAT WORK OUT FOR YOU, EH???!  
> \- SURPRISE: MALCOLM FUCKING LIED. Though you have to admit, there's something admirable about how quickly he switches gears once he's been found out. "You lied." "Oh, yeah I did, but it was for your protection -- *spouts nonsensical paternalistic bullshit*"  
> \- For a storyline that basically took a rocket launcher to the hull of my ship, the William bombshell got wrapped up VERY quickly. "Hi -- oh wait -- bye." K. See you in eighteen years, I guess.  
> \- Ah, the paralysis reversal. I am as big a fan of Curtis's tech and the "Felicity Walks Down the Aisle" storyline, but OH MY GOD did they REALLY have to pull a Matthew-from-Downton-Abbey??? And I cannot believe I'm saying this but a supposedly paralyzed dude in the 1900s jumping out of his wheelchair was somehow more believable than what happened to the woman in the 21st century with an implantable bio-stimulant in her spine. I am just saying.
> 
> *Sorry for the rant. But YEESH, this episode 15 was worse than the nonsensical bullshit the writers pulled last year in 3x15.


	12. Happy Accidents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, I've had an ask from someone on Tumblr suggesting that I write an Olicity as Bonnie & Clyde AU. I'm a little busy with this baby right here, but if anyone wanted to do it, just putting that out there. Though honestly I'm more interested in seeing an Earth-2 Barry/Iris combo as Bonnie & Clyde, or the ACTUAL Bonnie & Clyde of Earth-2, Deathstorm and Killer Frost. (i.e. Bring Robbie Amell back. Stop killing him off.)  
> That's all :)

Oliver wiped steam from the bathroom mirror and checked that the shower had eradicated any residue of blood and grime. The door was ajar, cooler air tickling the drying moisture on his bare chest and shoulders, while admitting the sounds of Felicity getting ready in the bedroom.

Oliver leaned on the doorframe, listening to the rummaging noises from their closet. There were sunken impressions on the duvet from where Felicity had been sitting, a pair of shoes she’d reconsidered lying askew at the side of the bed, and a discarded blue dress draped across the pillows.

“Do you think Sara has a crush on Connor?” he asked, a thought that had just recently occurred to him.

Felicity walked out of the closet in nothing but a flesh-colored slip and a pair of heels, her hair piled messily on top of her head and a dress on either arm. “What?”

“Sara Diggle. Our god-daughter.”

“I know who our godchild is, Oliver,” she answered, shooting him a glance in the mirror. “My _what_ was in response to you _just_ realizing that your best friend’s daughter has a crush on your — hottie — of a son. Do you know you’re wearing a towel right now?”

It _had_ in fact just occurred to Oliver that Sara’s inexplicable shyness around Connor had something to do with a crush. “But she never talks to him. She —”

“—hangs around doorways and watches him from afar?” Felicity suggested. “ _Crush_ , Oliver. Prepubescence, to be exact. She’ll be fine. I’m more worried about Hazel and Henry.”

Oliver blinked, feeling like the ground had shifted several degrees sideways. “What _about_ Hazel and Henry?”

Felicity looked over her shoulder as if to check whether he was serious. Upon confirmation that he was, she dropped the hangers and walked up to him. “Oh, you are so _cute_ ,” she said, her hands on his cheeks. “You don’t know.”

“What _don’t_ I know?” he asked, more than a little concerned at having missed something right under his nose. Especially something to do with his daughter.

“I think we can agree that our daughter’s way of being friendly involves arguing and tree-climbing dominance, yes?” she prompted. “So when she follows a boy almost her age — let’s say _Henry_ — around like a puppy all the time, fights a squirrel who tries to steal his food —”

“—there was a squirrel?”

“— and teaches him how to climb trees, what do you think that means?”

“ _God_.” Oliver experienced a sudden flashforward to the not-so-distant future where he and Barry were in-laws. “I think I understand how Quentin feels.”

Ever amused by his reaction, Felicity stood on her toes and kissed him on the nose. “They’re five and six,” she laughed. “If people ended up together based on childhood crushes, I’d be with Billy Hale from Apartment 4B, not my _very_ handsome, semi-naked — and _wet_ — hero husband. Are you going to reconsider the towel?”

With Felicity in his arms, Oliver was more than happy to concede the point, but old habits were hard to break. “I know we have a Statute of Limitations, but I could find Billy Hale right now and make him regret giving you up,” he murmured, rubbing the roughness of his cheek against her neck for good measure.

Felicity squirmed deliciously in his embrace, but she still kept him close. “ _Just_ so we’re clear, _I_ gave _him_ up. The guy said computers were stupid and went to play in the sandbox.”

Oliver opened his mouth in joking surprise, while he traced the length of her spine through the insubstantial silk. “Idiot.”

“Idiot,” Felicity agreed, teetering a little on tiptoes. “What were we talking about — _ah_ — again?”

Oliver had been surreptitiously making use of the insubstantial clothing between them, inching the hem of Felicity’s slip further up her thigh. “I think,” he said, very softly, “something long overdue.”

Felicity laughed breathily in his ear. “Not wasting any time, are we, Mr. Queen?”

Oliver shook his head, firm on his stance. “I believe the terms of the deal were to make up with a friend of ours. Would you call that a fair assessment, Mrs. Queen?”

She made a thoughtful noise. “ _Making up_ needs a hug — at least,” she declared. “Fair’s fair, Mr. Queen. Terms aren’t satisfied.”

Undaunted, Oliver eased his hand low, knuckles grazing her navel, the base of his palm anchored at the curve of her belly. She inhaled sharply, her fingers curling tight at the nape of his neck.

“I — was — getting — to — that,” he said, each word a stroke of his fingertips. “If that’s what you want.”

Among other things, Felicity whispered a word that sounded very much like _yes_ , and Oliver wholeheartedly obliged.

* * *

A abstinence-themed ban, Felicity was beginning to think, was going to be a one-hit wonder. Because based on the number of scratches she’d added to the bed frame, keeping their pants zipped for two-ish weeks was a highly unhealthy habit, at least from the perspective of the household furniture.

Not good at all.

Unlike some things.

_One thing._

Felicity was tugged from her chain of stray observations by a particularly rough kiss on the side of her neck, courtesy of her very enthusiastic husband. She caught the smile on his lips with her own, searched the sheets for his fingers until they were were palm to palm, not an inch apart, hands — arms — everything else. She arched into it, squeezing Oliver’s torso between her raised knees, scraping her nails down the sinuously moving muscles in his back.

It was everything at once — her senses in the best, the best kind of overdrive — reminding her just how much she’d missed having Oliver’s chest pressed tight against hers, the coiled strength of him in her arms, trading breath for kisses, as lightheaded as if it was seven — maybe six — years ago.

Another thrust bumped the back of her skull into the headboard, which should have meant stars and stripes — not the patriotic kind — and a pause for everyone to check for concussions. But the virtue of foresight (and the investment into a padded headboard) meant that Felicity only shook her head at Oliver’s concern with a breathless laugh.

“ _Thick skull_ ,” she whispered, her hands already roaming low. “Don’t…don’t stop.”

If a passable level of self-defense and an appreciation of archery were things — among others — that Oliver had taught her, a mild competence in IT skills and a decent comprehension of geek-speak were things she’d taught him. Along with the occasional impulse to tease.

But not here. In the name of the Internet Overlords and Mint Choc Chip creators, _why_ here?

In deliberate miscomprehension of her directive, Oliver slowed almost to a stop and dipped his head to lavish attention on her upper body. Which was very nice, not to mention _scratchy_ in the best way possible, but — _not_ — the kind of effort she’d been plumping for.

Felicity practically grunted with frustration, her hands on his hips in an attempt to pick things up again. Oliver only chuckled at her insistence, and lifted his chin for some deliberate eye contact while he nibbled on a particularly sensitive area, as if to remind her who had the upper hand.

“Is that how…we’re playing it?” she said.

His tongue flicked at her, and she arched instantly at the waist, a groan low in her throat. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he answered, and bent to her again.

Mildly infuriating — sure. Challenging — _very_.

But two could play at that game. Every muscle in her body wanted to stay exactly where it was and let Oliver’s mouth do the teasing, wherever and _whenever_ that would end up paying off, but Felicity flexed a slightly exhausted reserve of self-control and pushed off the pillows to — as it were — change the orientation of the board.

She relished the look of surprise on his face when she dragged him by the shoulders — bigger and stronger be damned — into a roll that took them limb over limb. The sheets were a hopelessly twisted mess by then, the duvet slung halfway onto the floor, and Oliver thudded back onto the mattress, the two of them precariously close to the edge in every sense of the word.

Felicity loved the challenge in his eyes more than she could say, the way their eyes and hands could roam over each other’s bodies without a trace of self-consciousness, and the way he groaned at the insistent press of her hips to his own. Her hair swept his chest when she leaned forward to kiss him, teasing her way from ear to throat.

The sides of her neck were still burning from the roughness of his stubble, and she nipped his skin with a biting kiss, making him groan again. She laughed at the appreciation in his look, the hoarseness of her name that meant he was close, so close —

Oliver reared suddenly up from the bed, his fingers digging into her hips as much as her fingers twisted at the back of his head, and they rocked together until she tensed with a gasp, her knees locked tight against his waist, toes curled beneath the duvet. Oliver thrust once — twice — and buried his face in her neck, gasping.

Everything looked criss-crossed and double-edged when she opened her eyes again, and she was half-laughing — because holy _frack_ she’d missed this — as she rolled back onto the rumpled pillows, loose-jointed and insanely motivated to purr.

“We…” she said, finding it satisfyingly difficult to string her words together, “are _so_ weak.”

Oliver pulled the sheets up to cover them and kissed the old bullet scar on her shoulder, still breathing hard. “The moral high ground suits you,” he said, his fingers splayed across her stomach like a starfish. “But this suits you better.”

Felicity caught his hand and pressed a kiss into his knuckles. “What are you talking about? I kept both.”

Oliver laughed and guided her gently onto her back so he could start a trail of kisses from her chest, leading in an unmistakable downward fashion. “Whatever you say, Felicity.”

Everything south of her hips still felt like they’d been left at a setting called _Perpetual Tingle_ , but Felicity was hard-pressed to refuse the undeniable promise of pay-off. But as soon as she felt a wet kiss on the inside of her thigh, she pushed his head back before he could get to where he was going. “We have friends over,” she said, more a statement of fact than an actual protest, given their respective positions.

“And a locked door.”

“We’ll be late.”

“Always late.”

“But —”

Oliver pulled the covers over his head and Felicity fell back on the pillows, gasping as his surprisingly cool tongue glided against her tingling skin. “ _Relax_.”

Of all the _luxuries_ (dubious choice of words, but to each their own) she’d had to forgo in pursuit of the moral high ground, Oliver’s mouth had been sorely missed. Felicity was pretty sure the shaking coming from under the duvet wasn’t just from her legs, but from Oliver laughing at the never-ending string of thoughts she couldn’t stop herself from verbalizing. She curled her hands into the headboard, nudging her hips as Oliver’s tongue and lips and fingers worked beneath the covers.

As one half of a parenting duo, Felicity had proudly made it her policy to _always_ have a locked door prior to any shenanigans going down (pun mildly intended). The first few years with baby monitors and toddlers who loved wandering into bedrooms to find mom and dad _just ‘cause_ meant A) that naked sleeping was off the table, and B) that parenting (i.e. _not_ traumatizing their babies) took first priority. But since books, technology, and the interest in the great outdoors had come into play, she’d felt a little more secure in the fact that Hazel and Tommy had learned how to amuse themselves.

It was that sense of security (possibly among other things) that meant the click of their locked door becoming — somehow — _unlocked_ didn’t compute until their six-year-old son walked straight into the room. Felicity slammed her thighs closed like a bear trap and shot upright, yanking at the covers hard and hiding herself up to the shoulder. In the meantime, Oliver — who hopefully hadn’t been knocked unconscious by her Bond-Girl stranglehold — went still beneath the covers, though she could sense his breath hot against her belly.

“ _Tommy_ ,” she said, while endless renditions of _oh frack, it’s happening_ ran through her head on a loop.

In one happy coincidence (which wasn’t saying much, given the circumstances), he’d been so focused on the thing he was carrying — some kind of toy — that his head had stayed mostly downturned during the on-the-bed scrambling. Instead of the traumatized screaming she’d been expecting (just her projection), Tommy looked curiously at the lump in the middle of the bed, in an apparent failure to process that a fully-grown person was playing possum underneath the covers.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Oh god. Their six-year-old was interrogating _her_ after walking unannounced into his parents’ bedroom.

The wheel of possible non-child-traumatizing answers spun.

“Uh…a pillow fort,” Felicity said, and winced when Oliver’s thumbs pressed — not hard — into her hips.

Was he… _laughing_?

“Oh.” For a second, Tommy looked hurt that he hadn’t been invited to the fictitious pillow construction (god, was it possible to love her son more?). “Can I play?”

“ _NO_ ,” she said immediately, making him jump. “Uh — no, sweetie, mommy’s…almost done. Why don’t you…go and find what you’re wearing tonight, okay? Ask grandma if you need help. But _don’t_ tell her about the pillow fort. She doesn’t like that. For…reasons.”

Oliver was in the process of tracing a series of tantalizing circles in her skin with his tongue, going lower still. _Wrap this up_ , he seemed to be saying.

Still clutching the covers to her chest, Felicity grabbed a pillow from behind her head and smashed it on top of where Oliver’s head was meant to be, in the unmistakable vein of _shut up, I’m trying_.

“Sweetie, remember what we said about knocking?” she said, with as much somber dignity as she could muster, given the _half-naked-slash-caught-in-the-act_ circumstances. “Even if the door isn’t locked, it’s still polite to knock. It scares away the gremlins.”

The head-smash pillow gave a telling twitch. Felicity planted her elbow on it and mashed again, all while keeping up parental appearances.

Tommy blinked at the self-moving pillow. “Oh. Sorry, mom, but I was trying something.”

As if he’d just remembered, he raised the blue toy brick in his hand, which Felicity vaguely recalled from a package that Bruce had dropped off during his last visit to Queen Industries. Which should have been bad sign _numero uno_ , given their uncle’s unconventional parenting ideas and tie-in concept of what toys were kid-suitable.

“It’s a puzzle,” he explained, manipulating the brick like a Rubik’s cube. “I turned it, and pressed it — _here_ — and — _here_ — and it changed.”

The brick gave a mechanical whirr of acknowledgment, and he showed her the revealed indentation that looked like it fitted very nicely over keyholes. “I think it unlocks things. It opened that drawer in the library clock. I found a diary and a bug.”

Oliver was actually shaking from trying not to make a sound, which was all very well, because Felicity was going to _kill_ Bruce Wayne. And she didn’t give a frack if she had to fight Alfred to do it.

“Why were you making that noise?” Tommy asked, his head cocked inquisitively to one side.

Felicity swallowed. _Play it cool._ “What — what noise, sweetie?”

Tommy hiccoughed to clear his throat. “That _ah — ah_ —”

Oliver was definitely laughing now, and Felicity — counterproductively — choked on her own breath trying to interrupt him. “That’s..um… _don’t_ repeat that noise to anyone. It’s…”

She stammered into silence, upon which Tommy frowned and scratched behind his ear. “I’ll ask uncle Bruce,” he concluded. “Bye mommy. Have fun with your pillow fort. Bye daddy.”

There was a very long pause, following the matter-of-fact statement that their son _had_ known his father was underneath the covers the whole time.

Doing what, Felicity did _not_ want to think.

Finally —

“Bye Tommy,” Oliver answered, muffled beneath a combination of duvet and pillow, and Felicity’s open thighs.

Padding off again, their precocious son with a gift for puzzles and tunnel vision that (unfortunately) could have come from either side of the family tree.

The door shut with another click, and Oliver began to laugh. Felicity dragged the covers off and snagged her robe off the floor, making a beeline for the door so she could turn the lock before anyone else _not_ in possession of a hi-tech picking tool could join in.

Even after the lock engaged, she tried the knob a couple of times to make sure it wouldn’t open, and slammed back-first into the door, sliding slowly to the carpet.

“Holy frack, Tommy knew you were there from the start,” she said, her hands covering her face. “Oh god, I thought it wasn’t possible to die from embarrassment. I’m doing it. I’m _actually_ dying from embarrassment.”

Oliver, who’d gotten dressed in the meantime, extended a hand to help her back to her feet. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the side of her head in reassurance. “He has your brains — of course he knew,” he said, exhibiting an annoying lack of shame.

“Are you blaming my genes for the fact that your occasional partner-in-crime got him a hi-tech _lock pick_ as a random present?” Felicity demanded, and waved a hand to cut him off before he could answer. “That’s it. We are _not_ having sex again until we get a deadbolt. Keys are on the hall table — hardware store’s open until five — see you in twenty minutes. I’ll be here — planning my funeral after I _die_ from embarrassment.”

Oliver studied the door for a moment, and grabbed a chair from the desk, propping it beneath the knob. “Problem solved,” he said.

“No, problem not solved!” She was practically jumping on the spot. “Problem not —”

Oliver pulled his shirt up over his head, and Felicity lost her words a little. Not just because his chest was a thing of beauty — muscle, salmon ladder, and fantastic genetics — but because she could see her fingernail marks and a _gorgeous_ hickey beginning to form at the side of his neck.

Suffice it to say, he’d gotten her attention.

“Felicity,” he said, taking her hands before she could start whipping them around again. “Tommy didn’t see anything. Our son is very smart, but we both know he’s more interested in solving puzzles than his mom and dad’s pillow fort. That was a terrible excuse, by the way.”

It was hard to argue with that last one.

“But we were — I was — the _ahh_ —”

If Oliver found her recreation of the _noise_ amusing, he had the good grace not to laugh. Though he did crack a smile. “We _didn’t_ traumatize him. There wasn’t enough screaming for that,” he promised, very calm, very steady.

“But the _ahh_ —”

“And we will explain that to him when we have The Talk with our kids. But for now, I would _really_ like to pick up where we left off.”

Felicity squinted at him for the lapse in logic. “For my benefit or yours?” she said warily.

In answer, Oliver let his eyes travel from head to toe, taking in the loose knot at her waist and the flush still blooming across her chest and throat. “I don’t like to leave things…unfinished.”

There was a pause as she considered it, chair-beneath-the-knob and shirtless husband included.

“Well.” Felicity made a show of shrugging one shoulder, so that the mostly-unfastened robe slipped down to her elbow. “Just because you _asked_.”

Oliver bent and scooped her up in his arms, tangling his fingers in her hair as he brought her to him for a kiss. “I did.”

* * *

Felicity was in the last stages of a hard-fought battle. Namely the epic struggle of trying to get her hair into a style that remotely resembled _classy_. The free-and-breezy look was out of the question, especially since the little afternoon prelude with Oliver had apparently warped her hair into a bedhead tangle.

She finally managed to wrestle it into a curly knot at the back of her head, observed keenly by Hazel from her seat at the vanity table.

“How are you gonna find all the pins again?” she asked, helpfully pushing another bobby pin out from the stack.

Felicity wedged it into her curls. “No idea. I guess I’ll have to ask my little genius to run an excavation, won’t I?” she said, and dropped a noisy kiss at the top of her daughter’s head.

Hazel giggled and rested her chin on her folded arms, playing with a bottle of Felicity’s perfume. The three-mirrored vanity was at present scattered with bits and pieces of makeup, a motley collection of the usual suspects, though the more permanent fixtures were a crystal vase of flowers (hydrangeas from the garden, blue as duck eggs) and a framed photo from the courthouse wedding, as drenched and as unexpected as the day had been.

The photo always seemed to fascinate Hazel, and no less so today. She stared intently at Oliver and Felicity’s smiling faces — him in the old Arrow suit, her in a red dress — soaking wet from the rain but smiling like they wouldn't have been anywhere else for the world.

“Everything okay, Hazelnut?” Felicity queried, sensing an unusual amount of quiet from her usually-talkative offspring.

Hazel shook her head. “You’re so pretty,” she declared, matter-of-factly. “I wish I looked like you.”

Coming from a six-year-old who usually fought tooth and nail before allowing herself to be zipped into a dress, Felicity had already been a little suspicious at the obvious lack of nuclear armageddon since the gala preparations started, but Hazel expressing concerns that she wasn’t pretty…constituted serious stuff.

She had a pretty good inkling that the reason was something to do with a certain new arrival from Central City, a five-year-old with a hyphenated surname, adorable good looks and a history of being commandeered into tree-climbing, squirrel-fighting missions in the open air.

It was sensitive ground she was walking, and after the earlier near-miss at traumatizing her son, Felicity was especially happy to lavish on this her full and undivided attention. She set down the lipstick she’d been about to apply, and gathered Hazel up at the waist so she could shift her daughter into her lap, expensive and material-unsuitable-for-wrinkling be damned. The dress Hazel had gone with was white with black polka dots from the waist up, and green gauze for the rest. Just the right amount of poof in the skirt, which was short enough to mean she could still do ample running around.

“ _Mo-om_ ,” Hazel said, beating the stubborn tufts of her skirt back down like they were grass snakes. “Do we have to?”

“Yes, we do,” Felicity insisted. “Bear with me, sweetheart. I want you to look at the mirror.”

Hazel squirmed reluctantly, but dropped both hands into her lap with a little _huff_ and stared the mirror down. Reaching into her display of tools, Felicity produced a hairbrush with a theatrical _ah_ , which made the corners of Hazel’s mouth twitch, if only a little. Unhurried for time, she ran a brush through Hazel’s soft curls — a rich, tawny blonde darker than her father and grandmother’s — watching her daughter’s face as she did.

While the brush swept gently through her hair, Hazel picked at her nails, sneaking tentative peeks at herself as if she was shy about looking for too long. Felicity proceeded to gather the mass of silky, gleaming hair into a hairstyle that mirrored her own (typical that doing it for someone else was easier than doing it herself), and leaned forward to rest her chin on her daughter’s small shoulder, so that their faces were side to side in the reflection.

Mother and daughter looked into the glass. Sometimes with Hazel’s penchant for tree-climbing and general rule-breaking (not to mention the archery-themed middle name), Felicity tended to think Oliver had left the biggest mark on their daughter. But side by side in a mirror, Felicity could see parts of herself in Hazel. Their eyes weren’t quite the same shade of blue — there was more gray and a bit of green in them from her father — but they were the same shape, slanted a little downwards at the sides, edged with a dark fringe of lashes. Even though Hazel’s face was a little rounder and heart-shaped like her brother’s, she had Felicity’s chin and nose, and the same rosy blush.

“I see…a pretty chin,” Felicity began, using her thumb to tickle beneath it, and continued through the giggling. “I see…cheekbones, courtesy of your father, the same eyes as yours truly, and the same _pretty_ blonde hair…”

“You dye it,” she chimed. “Daddy told me.”

“I _do_ dye it,” Felicity agreed, and kissed the side of her head. “But yours is prettier.”

“S’not.”

“Is too,” she said, and tapped her daughter’s nose with her fingertip. “And the same pretty, _pretty_ nose.”

Hazel clapped her hands onto her cheeks and blew. “I’m not pretty,” she moped.

Felicity responded with a two-armed cuddle around her daughter’s middle, nuzzling cheeks until Hazel let loose an uncontrollable cackle. “You — are — _beautiful_ , Hazel Artemis,” she said firmly. “Inside and out. I’m just a little more grown up, that’s all.”

Hazel unrolled the tube of lipstick Felicity had originally chosen and considered it in a way that showcased exactly what she was thinking.

 _Just like me_.

Or so she’d been told.

Felicity plucked the lipstick from Hazel’s hands and tipped her chin up. “ _Ah_ ,” she said, showing her how to keep her mouth open while she did her lipstick.

Upon completion, she made an exaggerated kissy-face at her daughter and held out the lipstick. “Your turn.”

In a landmark showing of femininity, Hazel let her mother dab some ruby red on her lower lip. Felicity showed her how to spread the color around by rubbing her lips together, and turned her back to face the mirror.

“Hm?” she said. “What’s the verdict?”

Hazel scrubbed the red out and smacked her lips with relish. “Nah,” she pronounced. “I’m gonna wait until I grow up.”

Felicity laughed and cuddled her daughter close again. “See?” she whispered, to their reflections, faces side by side. “Beautiful — whatever you choose to do.”

* * *

Hazel pointed at the teardrop emeralds. “ _This_ one,” she said determinedly.

Felicity happily obliged with her daughter’s choice of earrings. “My little genius,” she laughed, and turned her head to show them off. “How do I look?”

Hazel studied her intently, makeup done, jewelry chosen, dress zipped (she’d double-checked). Her dress was high-necked, gold, and snug, a triple combination she ordinarily would _not_ have gone for because _overkill_ , but Justice Day _was_ something of a special occasion, to say the least. And — she reasoned — in regular light, the dress was a subdued kind of gold, not the _blind you with Vegas bling-_ type jazz.

Plus her six-year-old liked it, so who gave a frack, really?

The door burst open with — somehow — a knock, and Tommy came racing in, full tux and red bow-tie, with Oliver bringing up the rear in a tux of his own.

“Looking good, gentlemen,” Felicity said, winking at Oliver’s reflection as best she could. “I take it the bow ties didn’t give anyone too much trouble?”

“Daddy showed me how to do it,” Tommy said, clambering onto the padded stool to join his mother and sister.

An action Hazel naturally felt the need to comment on, which set off its own little string of nudging and top-speed twin-talk. Felicity sensed the need to confiscate the blush and lipstick before it got used as smear weaponry, but for now — all was well.

In the meantime, Oliver touched Felicity’s shoulder, sweeping his palm gently down her arm. “Hi,” he said softly.

“Hi,” she said back.

The real conversation wasn’t in words, but they were content to lace their fingers together and let the rest speak for itself. Oliver brought her hand to his lips and kissed it softly in front of their children, and Felicity silently added another memory of a family she loved, on a very special day seven years in the making.

There would be people to see tonight — friends to meet, people to see, some unfamiliar, some less so, but Felicity remembered what she’d said to Oliver about making the day about the things that mattered. This was one of them. Whatever happened tonight, this was no less important — the small moments with just the four of them, their little family together.

“Happy Justice Day _,_ ” she said, and even though it wasn’t quite a question, Oliver answered it as though it was.

“Happy Justice Day,” he agreed, and she knew he meant it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo hoo. Party stuff coming up soon :)
> 
> And for people who watch Legends of Tomorrow: OMG OMG OMG CONNOR HAWKE. CONNOR HAWKE. I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT REVEAL. IT'S SO PERFECT BUT ALSO SO SAD. OMG OMG OMG *dies*
> 
> Until the next update :D


	13. Secrets to Tell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY. Four chapter update, partly because one scene ballooned the hell out of control once I got to it. School’s been super busy, stuff’s been piling up, and to be honest, Arrow hasn’t been as inspiring as of late. I think my default setting now isn’t Angry anymore — just a bit tired of all the drama. (Zzzzz)  
> Anyway, enjoy the update :)

“ _Recognized: Felicity Queen_.”

“Fire alarm?” Barry asked.

“ _Recognized: Barry Allen.”_

Felicity didn’t even blink, at what she wished was only the first in a series of safety questions about the Justice Museum. “Operational, and _way_ too high for a kid to reach.”

“ _Recognized: Cisco Ramon_.”

“What about the water mains?” he continued. “What if —?”

“Barry, I promise I’ll answer that question if you can tell me _where_ the water mains actually are,” she answered.

There was a generous pause.

“What about the circuit br—”

Cisco mimed drowning against the elevator walls. “ _Oh my god_ , Barry. Henry Joseph isn’t going anywhere — and I mean that literally. We tested him for the speed force, remember?”

“Yeah, but he’s half Allen,” Barry said, scrutinizing the ceiling as if it would give him some idea about what hazards to anticipate next. “If there’s some kind of trouble, he’ll be in it.”

Felicity blinked at Cisco’s imploring look. “Actually, I agree with that,” she said, notwithstanding the fact that the kids had the combined efforts of an investigative journalist, a police commissioner, an ex-Vegas cocktail waitress, and a texting teenager to monitor their movements. “Between me and Oliver, I’m still trying to figure out who’s more to blame for the whole _troublemaker_ thing. _But_ I know his DNA sequence already, so that’s a start.”

“Aw,” Barry said. “Do the nucleotides look like a frown emoji?”

“ _Right?_ ”

“Romantic, guys. Really,” Cisco said, which would have been nice, if he hadn’t also been stealthily mashing the elevator button with his thumb, like it would make the descent go any faster.

The doors eventually opened to the sub-basement Watchtower, admitting both the welcome noises of company and the reassuring clink of drinks being poured. The small group was gathered on the dais, which would have been a regular post-duty thing, except every single one of them was in full black-tie.

“I see the party’s getting started without us,” Felicity remarked, maneuvering the challenge of (hold for gasp) _stairs_ in her tight dress.

Diggle and Oliver hastily put down their whiskies, and the latter extended a hand to help her up the steps. “Evening, Diggles,” Felicity said, kissing both Diggle and Lyla on the cheek. “We really need to install that back entrance — you do _not_ want to know what I had to do to sneak Barry and Cisco past the trolls.”

“As long as it didn’t involve nudity,” Oliver commented. “Not that I mind, but Alex might have a stroke if it makes Page Six.”

“He was complaining about the reporters outside,” Lyla said, rubbing her husband’s back affectionately, like his hatred of the paparazzi was a cute little quirk. “Weren’t you, Johnny?”

Oliver frowned. “Are we allowed to call threats of bazooka-fire _complaining_?” he asked.

“Yes,” Diggle deadpanned. “Those guys need to report on some _real_ news for a change, not what ordinary people are wearing to the grocery store.”

“Amen to that,” Felicity said. “But all jokes aside, I bought a panda onesie _just_ to get photographed by strangers.”

There was yet another pause.

“That —”

“—sounded better in your head?” Oliver suggested, now rubbing _her_ back like the verbal slip-ups were still adorable, not an inconvenient source of trouble (her words, not his). “I know.”

“ _About_ that back entrance,” Cisco interrupted, while Roy (with a pained expression) mixed him a drink that was both blue and fizzy. “I had an idea.”

“Mechanical engineering _and_ you know an architect?” Thea said, toasting him with her martini. “Do tell.”

Barry shook his head, beer in hand. “Dude. _Don’t_.”

“C’mon, Barry,” Felicity teased. “What do you have against architects?”

“Nothing,” he answered. “But Cisco’s idea doesn’t _need_ an architect.”

Roy narrowly avoided splashing Cisco’s tux sleeve with blue booze. “Say what now?”

“ _Guys_ ,” Cisco said, with as much gravitas as possible for someone holding a Gatorade-colored beverage. “Don’t hate. Just keep your minds open to the possibility —”

“— of a back staircase that drops us off to nowhere?” Thea volunteered. “Penrose steps are _not_ a thing, Cisco.”

“They _will_ be a thing, but that’s not my point. It’s a valid scientific theory. I’ve been working on a prototype at STAR Labs, and all we need is a power source, two identical receptor plates at two different locations, plus the right radiation emitter—”

“— _Cisco_ —”

“—and we could send solid objects from one homing plate to the other,” he finished. “Justice League expressway, hello?”

“So…teleportation,” Oliver said, very flatly. “You think it’s possible to teleport.”

“Not _teleportation_ ,” Cisco corrected, and everyone looked relieved. “Matter transfer by specific frequency radiation.”

Felicity winced. “And we have _crazy_. Cisco, the amount of power you’d need to overcome the binding energy of every atom in the human body to dematerialize and rematerialize it somewhere else —”

“—would be the equivalent of one particle accelerator blast,” Barry finished. “Not to mention that the slightest mistake in calculation could turn someone into a pile of goo.”

“ _But_ ,” Cisco said, completely undaunted, “guess which billion-dollar Starling City tech company came up with a self-sustaining, next-generation power source?”

Given the _super_ subtle phrasing, it wasn’t hard to guess who he meant. Everyone turned to look at Felicity, who sighed. “Not unless one of you has a few hundred thousand dollars lying around in spare change,” she said pointedly.

“I don’t get the _Friends & Family_ discount?” Cisco said, sounding hurt.

“Even if that was a thing, the prototype isn’t even in mass production yet,” she answered. “Plus, there’s the goo problem we were talking about.”

“Except it’s _not_ a goo problem. Research into radiation at zeta-frequency tells us that it’s completely possible to send solid matter from one location to another without needing an energy blast. It doesn’t overcome the bonding energy between atoms — it just alters the subatomic vibrations. I managed to send a ficus through the other day. Sure, we lost the ceramic pot, but don’t sweat the small stuff, right?”

Felicity pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yeah, Cisco, I’m sure all of us would appreciate being zapped from point A to B — oh wait — _sans_ skin.”

Roy shuddered loudly, and Diggle shook his head. “I miss the days when all we had to do was install another elevator. _Teleportation_. What’s next, time travel?”

“Uh…” Barry began, but Oliver made a warning noise under his breath.

“Thank you for the unconventional solution, Cisco,” he said charitably. “But maybe we can save the science talk for the geek squad.”

“I can’t tell if you think that’s an insult,” Felicity said suspiciously. “But either way — geek and proud.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Barry agreed, and stuck out his hand for a fist bump.

Oliver cleared his throat, interrupting the aforementioned geek squad — Felicity, Cisco, and Barry — in their efforts to maneuver a three-way handshake (not weird at all). “ _Anyway,_ the reason why I asked everyone down here was so I could propose a toast,” he said, and everyone took the cue to get their drinks.

There was a moment of silence, and Felicity knew what Oliver was thinking as he looked around the group of assembled friends and family. They were missing a few faces, friends who couldn't be there, but by and large it was still the same handful of people who’d stood in the rain, just a little over seven years ago, smiling into a camera with absolutely no idea what would happen next.

Except one thing — hope. Hope, that something good would come from their fight. Hope that _somehow_ , they would change the world and tip the balance towards the light. The old photo was framed and mounted on the far wall, overlooking the glass that encased their suits and gear, commemorating where it had all began, and with _who_.

“It’s ironic that dark times are what usually bring us together,” Oliver began, in his trademark cheery fashion. “Which is why I’m so glad to see you all here today. Someone told me that Justice Day is about honoring the people who made the Justice League, and everything they stand for. That’s what I intend to do.”

Felicity winked at the honorable mention, and caught a flicker of a smile in return.

“You were the first people to believe in the idea that vigilantes could become something more, and the Justice League wouldn’t exist without the people standing in front of me. Tonight celebrates that. We’re out in the open now — some of us more than others — but we’re doing it for something we believe in. We’ve had seven years of doing good work, and whatever happens up there, let’s honor that time tonight.”

Oliver raised his glass to toast them all. “To seven years,” he finished.

“And seven more,” Felicity volunteered.

“Maybe for you,” Diggle said. “I’m renegotiating my contract.”

Even Oliver laughed. “Cheers,” he said, and everyone tapped glasses, laughter and smiles all around.

* * *

“Do you think any of us are gonna be sober by the time the real party starts upstairs?” Barry asked, leaning over the railing.

Oliver looked around. He’d been standing by the glass cases, studying the photo he already knew by heart. The others were still mingling on the dais over drinks (Felicity was showing Cisco something on the workstation while the Diggles and the Harpers looked on, understandably concerned), but Oliver had felt like a quiet moment, a chance to run through the niceties he was obliged to say when they joined the crowd of guests upstairs.

“Not a chance,” he said, and Barry hopped down to join him, only _almost_ tripping on a stray prototype belonging to Curtis.

The nondescript disk slid down whenever Barry tried to prop it against a ledge, so he eventually gave up and left it sheepishly to the side. “Not _quite_ the moment I was going for,” he muttered. “Let’s pretend the clumsy didn’t happen.”

“Wouldn’t be you if it didn’t,” Oliver pointed out.

Barry chuckled, brushing off his hands. “I guess not,” he said. “It was a good toast, by the way.”

Oliver made a face. “Not my best.”

“Should have gotten Felicity to proof-read,” Barry agreed. “Does she still look through your campaign journal? If she does — cute.”

“Does Iris still report on the Flash and pretend not to know it’s her husband running around out there?” Oliver returned. “You really shouldn't go near news cameras in that mask.”

“Hey, better than a pair of glasses and a newspaper with eyeholes.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Maybe,” he said, taking a sip of his drink.

There was a pause, and Barry exhaled. “I know things have been… _weird_ between us, you know, since Kaznia,” he said tentatively.

Oliver looked him in the eye. “But you came anyway,” he said. “I was in a tough position with John, and you had our backs. That was the mature thing to do, and I should know that, because I’ve never been called mature in my life.”

Barry smiled a little, fidgeting with his hands. “I just want to say…I’m sorry, and I’m glad we’re talking now.”

Oliver shook his head. “No apologies necessary. I was angry — after Kaznia — and some very smart people helped me realize why. I _thought_ I couldn’t trust you, but it turns out I didn’t trust you then, and I’m trying to change that. I really am.”

“You had a point, Oliver. You were right to get me to slow down. I keep making the mistake of thinking I can _rush in_ and fix everything before someone gets hurt, but with some things, it takes…time. Do you believe that?”

There was something odd in Barry’s tone of voice, at least to Oliver, and he turned. “I do,” he said cautiously. “Is everything okay, Barry?”

“Do you trust me?” he asked, very quietly.

Oliver nodded. “After everything we’ve been through — of course I do,” he promised. “Barry, what’s wrong?”

Barry shook his head slightly. “There _is_ something going on, but I’m handling it — slowly.”

Knowing his penchant for acceleration, Oliver gave him a look.

“Well, _slower_ ,” Barry amended. “I’m giving it some time. I promise I’ll tell you about it — but not right now. Do you trust me enough for that?”

“Any chance you can tell me what it’s about?” he prompted.

Barry pinched his lips together. “It’s not my secret to tell. Not yet.”

Oliver was curious, but he knew the feeling. “We get a lot of those around here.”

“You’d think I’d be used to that by now,” Barry said, with a faint smile.

Oliver rested a hand on his shoulder. “I trust you, Barry. You’ve always wanted to do the right thing, and I have faith in that instinct. Just…be careful, okay? You know you can ask for help, anytime, anywhere.”

There was something guarded in Barry’s smile, but Oliver might have imagined the flicker of hesitation, because it was gone a second later. “So — about that teleportation thing…” he said jokingly.

Oliver laughed. “Barry Allen — always trying to do the impossible.”

* * *

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but _this_ should be the squad,” Cisco said, doing a full swivel in his specially reserved chair. “With the amount of genius in this room — plus the _serious_ personal style — we could run the world.”

Felicity intercepted Cisco before he could spin straight off his seat and face-first onto the ground. “Easy there, tiger,” she said, patting him heavily on the chest. “You’re starting to sound like a Bond villain there.”

“Oh yeah.” Cisco squinted around the room. “Anyone seen a white Persian cat? His name’s Larry.”

Felicity shot him an amused glance from her chair. “Personal style?” she teased, leaning forward to inspect Cisco’s deep red tux. “You look like Willy Wonka meets Ryan Seacrest.”

“ _Rude_.” Cisco gave his messy hair an exaggerated sniff. “You’re just mad because my conditioner game’s on point, right _Bar_ — he’s not here, is he?”

Felicity used her chin to indicate Barry, who was currently chuckling at something with Oliver. Diggle — who should have been enjoying his whiskey and _not_ concerned with his best friend’s background antics — had been keeping an eye on that situation from the get-go, and she guessed from his _I-told-you-so_ smirk that any and all cracks showed every sign of being patched up. “Looks like their man-feud’s off the table,” she remarked. “Team Flash and Arrow can breathe a sigh of relief.”

“I _know_ ,” Cisco agreed. “Now I can have one big bachelor party and one wedding shebang if they’re both gonna be my best men.”

Roy chose that moment to butt in, bearing a bottle of beer in exchange for the aqua-blue abomination of a cocktail Cisco had been nursing. “Aw, buddy, do you actually think you’re getting married?” he said.

Cisco looked hurt, and Felicity stabbed Roy in the toe with her shoe. “I _could_ , you know,” he answered. “Lisa May Snart could be _the one_. If…her super-villain brother would stop showing up for Sunday dinners at the Ramon house. _Yeesh,_ was that one a bad idea. Let’s just say that Catholic exorcisms and super-criminals do _not_ go well with my _abuela’_ s _fabada_.”

“That’s the spirit, buddy,” Roy said, hopping slightly now thanks to Felicity’s stiletto-related intervention. “Give thanks for what you have — a family who loves you too much to disown you.”

Cue another stab in the foot.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Felicity said, before things could get worse. “You had a plan about handling our — and I’m _not_ saying it —”

“—you _have_ to say it,” Cisco insisted gleefully.

“— _shady little problem_ ,” Felicity finished, with a heavy sigh.

“The Shade works in the shadow, right?” he said, rolling forward on the chair to get at the keyboard. “Based on what you’ve told me — and marathon-ing the surveillance footage — it looks like our meta can manipulate anything in the absence of light. Easy solution: take away any shadows for the guy — or girl — to work with. The only bad thing, which is crazy bad news for us, because anything —”

“—blocking a light source creates a shadow,” Felicity said, holding out her hand (and the accompanying shadow it cast) for emphasis. “What were you thinking, some kind of containment cell?”

“With light sources inside the wall panels? Could work,” Cisco said. “But the Shade isn’t going to _stroll_ into a trap like that, not without some serious medicinal juju. I’d say what you need is something to throw him off, say a hyper-concentrated —”

“—light beam. What would the wattage _be_ on that thing? I mean, it’s not exactly something you could attach to an arrowhead, right? Any light source that strong has _got_ to be the size of a bazooka.”

Cisco gave her a look. “Says the person who helped make a suit that shrinks the subatomic distance between particles. C’mon girl, where’s your sense of the impossible?”

“It got shelved along with two fatigue-proof six-year-olds,” Felicity snarked back. “So you think you can make a light blaster compact enough for us to haul on the go?”

“ _Maybe_ , but it still doesn’t solve the problem of getting the Shade where you want it to be. The best chance we have of catching the meta is making sure we have something it wants, the only problem is…”

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Felicity said, ambling along with his train of thought. “And we have zero idea what the Shade wants with the tech.”

Cisco held up a finger. “You said that Kord Industries lost a quantum manifold, right?”

Felicity nodded. “Someone’s going after one-of-a-kind prototypes,” she said. “Making up for a shortfall? None of the stuff being stolen actually made it to the open market, so we know they’re after things they can’t buy.”

“Right, and as sexy as PhD-level quantum physics is to _me_ , not a lot of people know what that thing does. At the risk of sounding overdramatic — the manifold _and_ a big enough power source could cause collisions between quantum fields,” Cisco said, making a miniature _boom_ with his hands. “Which is just another way of saying —”

“—a big hole in reality as we know it,” Felicity translated. “But that’s just theoretical, Cisco. The quantum fluctuations would be crazy unstable, unless the evil geniuses found a way to stabilize the reaction.”

Cisco narrowed his eyes at her. “A little birdy — not naming names — might have mentioned that QI was working on an energy stabilizer. For industrial use only, but with the right repurposing… _perfect_ for evil plan.”

Felicity exhaled. “I’m going to kill Curtis. He _knows_ what he’s like with a few margaritas.”

“Do you know what this means?” Cisco grinned. “You have the perfect bait to get the Shade into your home turf. Leak a few rumors on the internet, maybe the dark web…hope it gets to your guy. Lay the trap, wait for it to spring, and _bam!_ A-plus hero-ing.”

Felicity took her time swallowing her drink, ignoring Cisco’s fist bump. “So basically, you’re suggesting I dangle a piece of proprietary — _secret_ — technology worth a couple million R &D bucks in front of a meta with mystical shadow powers, who we have _zero_ guarantee will buckle in front of what can probably only be described as a mega-powered flashlight, in the _hope_ that it’ll stop the bad guys — who we don’t even know, just BTW — from making a huge, theoretical reaction that could have devastating effects on the fabric of reality?”

Cisco tipped his beer bottle at her. “The best plans are the ones that sound one-thousand-percent crazy, m’lady Oracle. I’ll let you know how that mega-flashlight goes.”

Felicity had to laugh, tipping her head back to the ceiling and chortling quietly at the multi-leveled insanity of it. Because there was a party going on upstairs, and there she was — post-heartfelt toast in celebration of a superhero league — brainstorming Wile E. Coyote-ish plans with a guy who specialized in churning out the impossible. “ _Fantastic_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Chucks plot confetti around madly*  
> I think I've run out of energy to write thoughts on 4x16. Everything was so...weird. Characters weren't characters (looking at you, Thea and Diggle) and just nononononono. Oliver, you huge butthead. How did your glorious marriage plan not include the words “I’m sorry”????!  
> That being said, Felicity's hair and makeup was ON POINT. *in love*


	14. Party Favors

Felicity’s stomach gave a protesting squirm, partially in protest at being forced into something that wasn’t sweatpant-y on a Saturday night, partially because she hadn’t eaten a bite since the never-ending line of guests had appeared for the gala.

“Am I the only person starting to wish we hadn’t invited so many people?” Oliver muttered behind an infallible smile, as Mr and Mrs _Something_ of the _Something Corporation_ melted into the crowd after greeting them.

“Between you and me, I’m pretty sure I capped the guest list at family and friends,” Felicity said, eyeing the buffet table (and the guests clustered around it) in the distance. “But _then_ I handed the list off to said family’s resident party planner, who also happens to be —”

“—my campaign manager,” he finished, and sighed. “Why do we keep falling for it?”

“Probably because your sister’s an _evil genius_ , and we all know evil geniuses look adorable all the time and give great hugs.”

She sensed Oliver’s sidelong glance. “What does that make you?” he asked.

Felicity’s stomach rumbled. “ _Starving_ ,” she said. “I think that’s the fourth time someone’s walked by with the shrimp thing. Hey, if I concentrate hard enough, I think I can reel one of the waiters in. Wanna see?”

Oliver caught her by the arm before she could Jedi-mind-trick her way into tripping. “I think we’ve done enough for today. Let’s g—”

Felicity heard the rapid-fire sound of fancy shoes sprinting across marble floors, which — in this kind of setting — could only mean one thing. “Incoming,” she warned.

True to form, Oliver ducked and scooped up the first one that came within reach. It turned out to be Hazel, already sporting a fresh chocolate stain on the hem of her gauzy skirt and — for all intents and purposes — completely fine with it.

Instead of the usual misbehaving pair, the Queen offspring had been joined by a third, and Felicity checked the latter to make sure that he hadn’t sustained any damage from running with (pun intended) the genetically mischievous. “Hello there, monsters,” she said, catching both boys on either side of her. “Everyone enjoying the party?”

Henry had a chocolate smear on his cheek (three guesses as to its source), but was otherwise his usual level of bashful and nodded, clinging to her skirt. “We’re playing hide-and-seek with Connor,” he whispered, like anything louder could alert their would-be seeker. “He’s supposed to count to _100_.”

“Does grandma know?” Felicity asked Tommy. “She was supposed to be watching you.”

“Nana went to say hi to the photographers outside,” Tommy reported. “She asked them if pink made her look fat. There were a lot of flashy lights.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Dad, I’m blind,” Hazel announced, clinging to his neck like a vine. “Too many pictures.”

Oliver let his daughter pat his face and beard with exaggerated clumsiness. “You’re not blind,” he said. “That kind of thing only happens after a day or two.”

“Can I get a dog to bring me around?” she asked, ever immune to his sarcasm.

“Different conversation, different time.”

“Dad says he knows a blind person who can see,” Henry added, matter-of-factly. “He uses his ears to make up for the loss of _vis-you-all_ _ah-cut-ity_.”

The last part might not have made sense if he’d been anyone _but_ Barry’s son. “Visual acuity,” Felicity translated, seeing Oliver’s puzzled look. “I’m guessing Barry takes _bring-your-son-to-work_ day very seriously…Oliver?”

Delayed reaction. “Mm?” he said, visibly preoccupied.

Felicity wasn’t sure if she completely regretted telling Oliver about Hazel’s crush on Henry, given the super-subtle way he glanced between the two of them, like he wasn’t quite sure if Henry Joseph was something to be worried about.

“Really?” she prompted, trying not to roll her eyes at the total lack of coolness on the childhood romance front. “Sounds like a good story, doesn’t it, Hazelnut?”

Hazel grinned by way of an answer, an expression as gooey as it was _adorable_. Meanwhile, Tommy tugged on Felicity’s skirt with one hand, rubbing his eyes with the other. “Why did the photographers keep shouting at us?” he asked curiously. “I just stuck my head out to see what Nana was doing.”

An unfortunate side effect of her dress meant that Felicity was unlikely to be able to crouch without falling right over (or ripping something vital), so she guided her son back to one of the chairs and sat him down.

“This is why we need a back entrance,” she said, partially to Oliver, and took Tommy’s hands from his eyes. “Well, sweetheart, they’re reporters and they like to shout at you so they get a picture.”

Tommy blinked owlishly at her, flash blindness aside. “Why don’t they just ask?”

“You know, sweetie, if I knew the answer…” Felicity pushed the floppy fringe out of his eyes and thumbed his cheek, making the two of them smile.

Tommy leaned forward, which meant that she did too. “ _Don’t worry, mom. I won’t tell anybody_ ,” he whispered.

Felicity raised her head. None of the others seemed to have heard. “About this aftern—”

A vigorous nod, before she’d even had a chance to finish her sentence. She was taken aback at not having to explain to him (in her child-friendly, roundabout way) why asking his uncle Bruce about the _ah-ah_ noises was a super no-good idea.

But sometimes with her son, Felicity learned it was just better to go with it.

Even so, she kissed him loudly on the forehead, leaving a lipstick mark she’d have to wipe off for him. “How’d you get to be so smart?” she asked.

“I eat my vegetables,” he answered, which was without a doubt an image, given the red smear on his forehead like a third eye.

During the interim of scrubbing her son’s face clean, Felicity had a chance to look around the museum again. Thea — as per usual — had commandeered a fleet of decorators (possibly a reluctant Roy) to work the place into more than its usual self. There were dozens of round tables set up for dinner and guests, a dance floor in the center of the arrangement, and Justice Day banners flowing from the steel columns. The tables themselves were cream and gold instead of the usual crisp white tablecloths, crowned with centerpieces of flowering branches.

Glass and steel had the unfortunate side-effect of feeling cold and dark after the sunlight hours, something she’d countered with strings and strings of tiny gold lights, webbing the ceiling with a constellation of winking stars. Every color seemed to glow, every corner of the room luminous, in celebration of an organization resolved to stay in the light, of a team proud to stand in the sun.

“I know,” Oliver said, taking in the room too. “I should really give my campaign manager a raise.”

“Already on the contracts, brother dearest,” Thea said, startling Felicity with a soundless tread. “Good news, you guys are off the hook for meet-and-greets.”

“Why do I sense there’s bad news accompanying that sentence?” Felicity said.

“Depends on whether you were hoping for a dance with my brother, because Mayor Castle wants a minute with Ollie,” Thea reported. “She’s here.”

Oliver hesitated, Hazel still in his arms. “I should probably go then.”

“Are you going to dance with some other lady?” she asked flatly, exhibiting signs of a pout (along with every intention to maintain an armlock until she got a straight answer). “What about mommy?”

Felicity and Oliver exchanged amused glances while the latter returned Hazel gently to floor level. “I guess that means mommy has to say yes, first, doesn’t she?” he agreed.

Cue three interested stares, along with a smothered grin on Thea’s end.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Felicity said, pretending to think. “Daddy’s such a good dancer. Doesn’t seem fair to keep him all to myself, right?”

Tommy and Henry Joseph only looked doubtful, while Hazel glowered. “ _No_ ,” she said darkly.

“Aren’t you three supposed to be hiding from Connor?” Thea suggested, looking like she was fighting a losing battle with her laughter. “There are some _great_ hiding spots near the exhibits. Who wants to see?”

Tommy grasped his aunt’s hand and reached for Hazel’s too, quiet and unassuming. “C’mon,” he said. “Mom and dad have grown-up stuff to do.”

Hazel looked tempted by the idea of defending her dad’s dancing rights (weird thought, _very_ weird), but she ended up following her (slightly younger) brother. Though not without one last glare over her shoulder.

“ _Be careful_ , okay?” Felicity said, ruffling heads as they went past. “Try not to knock anyone over this time.”

“ _Promise_ ,” they chirped.

Felicity pressed a kiss to the top of Tommy’s head. “Love you both,” she said.

“Love you too,” Tommy whispered, accepting a parting shoulder-squeeze from Oliver as he went.

Felicity reached up to adjust Oliver’s bow tie with a sigh.

“They grow up so fast, don’t they?” he murmured.

She gave an exaggerated (but quite possibly real) sniff. “Can’t see through my tears.”

“I know we’re not supposed to play favorites,” he began. “But…”

Felicity had a decent idea of what he meant — though it wasn’t playing favorites _per se_. It wasn’t to say that either of them loved Hazel or Tommy any less, because they would never — could never — put one over the other. She wasn’t an expert on parenting, but she knew _that_ , at the very least. What Oliver meant was something…a little different. Hazel and Tommy had qualities from their father, little parts of his personality, small physical quirks that uncannily mirrored something she’d gotten used to seeing from Oliver, and probably vice versa (she _hoped_ ).

But there was at least _one_ quality that resonated on another level, at least with her, a little something that made their hurts, their worries, and their fears more easy to understand, because it felt like she was looking into a mirror when she crooned and cuddled the tears away.

With Oliver, she knew it was Hazel, and with herself, she knew it was Tommy. Both of them loved — _loved_ — their children, but Oliver had a special bond with his daughter the way Felicity did with Tommy. She’d always sensed Tommy’s feelings even if he didn’t say a single word, and he rarely did, while Oliver had always been better at reaching Hazel in a language of their own, in her unique moods and her singular way of seeing the world.

Maybe it was because Hazel reminded him so much of Moira, whether it was the spitfire tenacity she’d given off since day one, or the fierce protectiveness of anything and everyone she loved — she didn’t know. With Tommy, she’d known for a while that it was his heart — the vulnerability of a boy so unsure of himself, in his worth of being loved. Hazel had always been so certain of where she stood and her place in the world, and Felicity loved that bravery about her, but Tommy’s hesitation, his shyness and his small fears, they were something Felicity knew in her bones. It just _was_ , ever since the day her dad had walked out on her, and Felicity had always understood her son better because of it.

She’d never articulated the exactitude of her feelings towards her children — she’d never needed to — but Oliver knew.

So her answer was to turn and kiss him softly on the lips. “Won’t tell if you don’t,” she said.

Oliver tucked her arm securely into the crook of his elbow. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

* * *

 

Oliver sighted the mayor first, at the center of a circle comprised mainly of senators and corporate counterparts Felicity knew on a first name basis. Normally, the impending encounter would have made him grit his teeth. He knew what Diggle would have said, that conversations in this kind of setting always rang of insincerity, but it wasn’t that. Being Moira Queen’s son — born and raised — meant that stiff dinner parties and conversing with people he barely knew were tricks of the family trade, and he’d learned from his mother in spades.

What wasn’t so easy to learn was curbing the feeling of inexperience, like he was wading into a rigged game with no way of leveling the playing field. It could have been his imagination, but when he’d first started out in politics, he’d felt like a boy trying to sit at the adults table, a sentiment his opponents had all capitalized on at some point during the race.

Having Felicity with him — a brilliant, fiercely _intelligent_ woman — steadied the habitual nerves, because she’d chosen, and she’d chosen him. There were many things a mayoral candidate should have cared about, and Oliver did. He cared about three things — his family, the voters, and her. It was something he didn’t tell her enough, but when Felicity looked at him the way she did, with love and pride, he didn’t feel like the kid out of place anymore.

With her eyes on him, he wanted to be better — and he could.

A little unexpectedly, Mayor Castle excused herself from the group as they approached, choosing to meet them halfway instead.

“Mayor Castle,” Oliver said courteously. “Glad you could make it.”

Celia Castle had chosen deep blue for the occasion, classically conservative as befitting the public face of Starling City, her dark hair loosely pulled back to soften the sternness of her squared features. But her eyes were as acute and unflinchingly direct as ever, even as they softened for a cordial greeting.

“I’ve told you before, Oliver — it’s Celia,” she said in her habitually clipped voice, and grasped Felicity’s hand with a smile. “You look wonderful. How are you, Felicity?”

“ _Hungry_ ,” she answered, with her usual unbridled honesty. “The one time there’s a decent buffet table at one of these things, the decorations look so beautiful that the food falls right out of my mouth when I try to eat.”

Felicity was the only one who winced, because Celia joined Oliver in his good-natured amusement. “Whoever planned this did a fantastic job,” she said. “I have half a mind to hire them for the next charity benefit.”

“My sister did the decorations,” Oliver informed her. “I’m sure she’d be happy to do it again.”

“A woman of many talents,” Celia commented. “I understand she’s also running your campaign.”

“My campaign wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without the support of my family,” he said smoothly.

“Oliver’s always surrounded by fantastic women,” Felicity added. “Kind of a self-compliment — I know — but politics, am I right?”

Celia laughed shortly. “I see you’re learning on the job. A couple more weeks and you’ll have all of it down.”

Oliver was unperturbed by the frankness of the conversation, choosing to glide his fingertips down Felicity’s exposed back instead. Gold suited her the way red did, setting off the cream and blush in her skin, though the occasions when she chose to wear it — while memorable — were rare, which was why he fully intended to remember this one along with the rest. Her posture straightened subtly in response to the semi-intimate distraction, and she shot him a tiny sidelong glance.

It was a game, and they were _very_ good at playing it — passing off the reasons to touch each other as innocent brushes of affection, or finding some unseen, simultaneously tormenting means to do it. They both smiled — wholly out of reflex — when Felicity managed to snag the offending hand by the wrist, twisting it ever so slightly in a playful reminder that they were in polite company, talking the whole time.

“Anyway, Celia, it was lovely to see you, and…”

She glanced towards the dance floor, where Cisco was currently doing some kind of head-shaking dance move that had cleared at least a twelve-foot radius around him, with Barry and Iris the only ones brave enough to stand close by.

“— I think there’s a dance-related situation I should be getting on top of — _in a_ _manner of speaking_. I mean, _not_ Cisco, you know — never mind.”

She gave Oliver’s arm a squeeze and kissed his cheek. “No shop talk, you two,” she warned. “It’s a party. Leave the campaign stuff for later.”

“Will do,” Oliver agreed.

Celia watched her go, joining Barry and the others with enthusiasm. “I’ve always liked her,” she remarked. “Biggest relief of my life when I found out she wasn’t running against me. Why is that?”

Oliver smiled and reached for a glass of champagne. “You know what they say about the people who go into politics. Felicity has other things to occupy her time. Running a company, for instance.”

Celia tipped her flute towards him. “Some might call those kinds of things _better_.”

Their glasses tapped with a clear, ringing note. “On that, we can agree.”

Celia laughed quietly. “How about a dance? All in the spirit of friendship, of course.”

“Lead the way.”

* * *

“You’re quite the dancer, Oliver,” Celia said, her tone reflecting pleasant surprise. “The gossip pages never mentioned that.”

“I didn’t know the Mayor’s office keeps up to date on tabloid coverage,” Oliver answered, twirling her smoothly across the floor.

Celia smiled darkly. “Politicians love their gossip — reading unsanitized rumors keeps things interesting.”

The music shifted gradually into the smooth clink and sway of jazz, and Celia tilted her head slightly to the side, studying him like she was seeing him for the first time.

“Why are you running?” she asked, point-blank. “Why run for Mayor, Oliver?”

The tone of the conversation had shifted too, and Oliver knew it. There was nothing overtly hostile in Celia’s stare, but a frankness that reminded him of Lyla Michaels and how she looked at the world, quietly weighing up what she saw, for all its truths and complexities.

The race for Mayor not withstanding, it made Oliver feel like he could trust her.

“I’m running to make my city a better place. I’ve always protected it with everything I have, and it’s time…time I did things a little differently. Not as a vigilante — as an ordinary person. Starling City’s legacy should be the conviction and heroism of the ordinary individual to do what’s right, and it shouldn’t be misunderstood as one man acting alone outside the law. I started this on the outside, but now I want to show the people of Starling that it’s possible to trust the system, that the default shouldn’t be vigilante justice. That’s the kind of city I’ve always believed in, and it’s the kind of place I want for my family — for my children to grow up in.”

“I was afraid of that,” Celia sighed. “You’re one of the good ones, Mr. Queen. A good heart, but…naive.”

“That’s a cynical way to view someone who believes in hope.”

Celia laughed briefly, like she’d been caught off guard by his directness. “Maybe,” she agreed. “Look, Oliver, you’re going to win. I can see that. My advisors can see that. We’ll put up a good fight to the end, but come November, your name will be on the door and I’ll have time to work on a book about what it means to be a woman in politics.”

“It’s a little early to say —”

“I’m not here to mince words, Oliver. Today’s a courtesy. A handing-off _before_ the actual handing-off, minus the reporters and the official staff. No one else is going to tell you what I’m about to, so make sure you hear what I say.”

Oliver waited.

“Politics is the polar opposite of what you’ve been doing as the Green Arrow. Change, making the city a better place, family…that’s all well and good, but your shiny new coat as an outsider, changing the system for the better…it won’t last. Red tape and bureaucracy will slow you down, and you can’t shoot your way through that kind of thing, not without some serious political backlash, maybe an impeachment hearing where they’ll drag you — your wife — your whole family’s name through the mud. You want to believe that the system works? The system will eat you alive unless you wise up, and I’m warning you now — in good faith — because you need to know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“A life of politics?” Oliver said. “None of this scares me — you should know that by now, Mayor Castle.”

“I know,” she agreed. “I have a family of my own, Mr. Queen, and smear campaigns at _best_ would have been mutually assured destruction, even if I thought you’d go after my family if I went after yours in the campaign. But others won’t be as principled as me. Being mayor paints a target on everyone’s backs — even your children’s.”

“As opposed to being the Green Arrow,” he said evenly.

“Very true, but the difference is — it won’t just be psychopaths and war criminals looking through the windows — it’ll be high-functioning sociopaths with _Senator_ and _Congressman_ and _Corporal_ attached to their names, ones you can’t throw in jail without some serious evidence of misfeasance, which you’ll need to be some kind of god to get into trial anyway. You’ve kept your family safe so far — figure out a way to keep them safe again, or the results won’t be pretty, I _promise_ you that.”

Oliver looked Celia in the eye. “Why are you telling me this, if you’re so sure I’m going to win?”

Celia looked like she wasn’t quite certain of the answer herself. “Believe it or not, Oliver, I didn’t like you when you first entered the race. I thought you were going to be a pain in my ass, a kid trying to walk in his dad’s shoes to prove some kind of point. But you turned out to be as idealistic — as honest — as people say you are. That’s irritating, but only because it makes me like you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should,” Celia said, as the song drew to a close and everyone around them started to clap. “Smile, Mr. Queen. You’re going to be mayor.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For doing this.”

Celia raised her voice slightly, which made him realize that she’d been speaking barely above a whisper the whole time. “Don’t thank me yet, Oliver. I put up one hell of a fight — I always have. You’d better come prepared for the debate.”

Steely-eyed, pragmatic, and unflinchingly honest. Oliver inclined his head in acknowledgment of a very worthwhile opponent, and a race not quite conceded, not just yet.

“Looking forward to it,” he agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random stuff: I was in Scotland this weekend and oof are the Highlands (and Edinburgh) gorgeous. I unashamedly admit that I geeked out over the Clan tartans and may or may not have gone poking around for Mackenzie and Fraser...(cough). But the weather...the weather. I have not been to a country where it's possible to have pouring rain + blazing sunshine + gusting wind ALL AT ONCE. I AM SO SURPRISED.
> 
> Outlander season 2's out on my birthday!!!! *hearteyes*
> 
> I also smacked my face with a door just now. Never had a black eye before but I think I might have just given myself one. (Sigh)


	15. Double Meanings

“That was _some_ dancing, Cisco,” Felicity said, holding out a backup orange soda for him to chug. “You really cleared the floor there.”

“Yeah, thanks for that, by the way,” Connor said, visibly disgruntled as he tried to look for his (ex) dance partner. “We were doing fine until your mini _Exorcist_ remake scared her off.”

“Puh- _lease_.” Cisco tossed his head. “ _Dirty Dancing_. Patrick Swayze.”

Barry made a doubtful face at Iris. “Farmer Ted. _Sixteen Candles_.”

“Oo, Poindexter,” Felicity volunteered, doing a little awkward dance of her own. “ _Revenge of the Nerds_.”

Iris joined in with a snap of her fingers, imitating Cisco and cracking up in the process. “Carlton dance. _Fresh Prince of Bel Air_.”

“Seriously guys, no need to tiptoe around my dignity,” Cisco said, sipping his orange soda with a pinky sticking out. “Haters gonna hate.”

In the meantime, Felicity patted Connor on the back, who was still craning his neck to find said girl. “Relax, Connor. Your dad and Madison’s mom go way back. We’ll invite them over for brunch or something — I know Oliver’s been dying to break out that slow cooker.”

“ _Mm_ —” Iris almost spilled her drink down the front of Barry’s tux in the hurry to flex her investigative muscles. “Senator Danforth, right? She was a bridesmaid at Moira Queen’s wedding.”

“Check you out, Miss Big Time Reporter,” Felicity said, eyeing Iris appreciatively. “How much dirt do you have on everyone?”

“ _Binders_ ,” Barry said, in a _hush-hush_ whisper.

“Never mind that.” Connor waved his arm. “You can’t just _invite them over for brunch_ and give them _slow-cooker eggs_. That’s like — like —”

Three adults (maybe four, if they counted Cisco) surveyed the sputtering sixteen-year-old. “She’ll think I _like-like_ her, or something,” he finished lamely.

“As opposed to _not_ -liking her?” Felicity asked. “C’mon, Connor. You won’t be sixteen and blooming forever. Gotta jump at those chances.”

“Hey,” Diggle said, appearing suddenly behind them with his daughter.

The barely-suppressed smile was indicator _numero uno_ that he was about to ask something very transparent, and Felicity hastily hid her mouth behind a glass, because the last time she’d seen that expression was the highly ill-fated occasion on which they’d tried to surprise Oliver with a birthday party in the Watchtower.

Suffice it to say they’d nearly smoked out the entire ground floor and blew out the Wifi by the time Oliver’s fight-or-flight reflexes had stopped doing their thing.

She still blamed Roy for hanging the _piñata_ so close to the entrance.

“Sara here really wants a dance, but I think I pulled a muscle or something,” Diggle said, indicating a spot somewhere mid-back. “I figure one of you can fill in for me.”

If the direction Sara’s eyes kept darting in was any indication of who she wanted to do the waltz with, it wasn’t just _one of them_.

Barry coughed and leaned on Iris like he was about to keel over. “I would, but I think I’m coming down with something.”

Cisco clutched his stomach. “I think I cramped with all that awesome dancing just now.”

Felicity made her best _aha_ face. “That’s so weird, because Connor is _so_ good at the waltz,” she said, gesturing in his direction like he was the subject of a shareholders presentation. “Why don’t you show Sara how?”

Connor rolled his eyes at them. “Stampeding buffalo? More subtle than… _whatever_ this is,” he muttered, but his scowl softened when he turned to Sara, a perfectly natural reaction for a girl he’d known since she was still running around in onesies and sternly demanding piggybacks from the nearest adult. “C’mon, sport. Let’s show the old people how it’s done.”

Sara blushed to her fingertips, but she walked off with Connor’s hand in hers, not quite meeting anyone’s eyes.

“They grow up so damn fast,” Diggle muttered, all signs of his quote- _pulled muscle_ -unquote vanishing as he leaned on the table with the rest of them, watching his daughter stand on Connor’s feet while they shuffled side to side in a vague approximation of a waltz. “I’ll have to start carrying a bigger gun around soon. Do you think a Glock would scare them more, or should I invest in a Winchester?”

Felicity chafed his arm in sympathy, hastily skirting the firearms question. “I think someone’s a little irritated by the politicians wandering around,” she said, like he was a crotchety uncle at a family blowout.

Diggle grunted. “Never liked politics. Lots of double-talk, too much booze, not enough of anything else.”

Iris tipped her glass at him. “You said it.”

Everyone looked around in alarm when Cisco choked abruptly, just about inhaling an ice cube. “Oh hell, is that _Luthor_?” he coughed.

“ _Lex_?” Iris said interestedly, standing on her toes to see over the crowd. “Dad or junior?”

“Junior,” Felicity answered. “I think Thea got a little trigger-happy with the guest list. LexCorp was on the books because of the Wayne-QI deal — I guess with the gala fundraiser and all, she must have thought inviting the CEO was a good idea, ethical record notwithstanding.”

Barry squinted at the junior in question. “Jesus, he’s just a kid,” he said. “What is he — mid-twenties?”

“Says the person who looks like he still sings high school _a capella_ ,” Diggle observed.

Felicity cut off Barry’s indignant retort before the conversation could derail any further. “Cisco, how do you know Lex?” she asked. “You never mentioned there was a history.”

Cisco downed his orange soda like it was scotch in a noir film and glowered at Lex Luthor Jr over the empty glass, in the process of mingling with the cities’ leadership halfway across the museum. “I guess you could say we have a _history_. Close your eyes, people. Daddy’s about to tell a story. Imagine a young Francisco Paco Ramon —”

Barry’s eyebrows were dangerously close to his hairline. “Young?”

“Young _-er_ ,” Cisco amended, with a generous eye-roll. “And _shh_. Like I was saying, a younger Cisco Ramon, fresh off the high school valedictorian track and ready to make a big splash in Caltech. Now imagine walking with him to his first advanced quantum physics class, and —”

“Cisco, we really don’t have all night,” Felicity said.

“ _Fine_. Abridged version.” Cisco stared them all down, his fingertips under his chin like a contemplative sage. “I went jazz band, he went fencing. I studied my ass off, he made the debate team cry. He graduated computer science, I graduated with mechanical engineering. I went to work at STAR Labs, he went off to run dad’s company. He was a — what’s the word…”

“— _dick_ ,” Barry volunteered.

“ _Yes_.” Cisco pointed at him, without taking his eyes off Lex. “ _That._ ”

“Third-generation CEO who’s a piece of work?” Diggle said, thoroughly unfazed. “I could have told you that.”

“Again, not representative of _all_ CEOs,” Felicity stressed.

“I swear to god, if he comes anywhere near here, I’m gonna need some of that open bar,” Cisco promised, looking around for more soda.

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing none of you need to do business with him,” Felicity said evenly. “Yay me.”

“LexCorp made a fortune out of accepting military contracts after all the top tech companies revised their code of ethics,” Iris reported, eyeing the subject of her report with thinly veiled distaste. “Palmer Tech and Queen Industries never take military R&D deals, and Wayne Enterprises phased them out ages ago. He’s a parasite.”

A pause.

“I need to interview him,” she concluded.

“ _That’s_ what you get from the no-ethics thing?” Barry demanded.

Iris didn’t seem to have heard. “Where’s my clutch?” she asked, her hand open and awaiting her bag.

“ _Uh-uh_.” Barry folded his arms. “I have four vetoes left, and I’m about to use one of them.”

“ _Three_ vetoes, and —” Iris made a sound that was both skeptical and very cute.

Mr. and Mrs. West-Allen had a brief stare-down, which was in no way amusing to the onlooking peanut gallery. It was like watching a golden retriever go up against a determined Jack Russell, and it ended (predictably) with Barry sighing and slapping Iris’ ruby-red clutch into her hand. “ _Fine_ ,” he said. “But if we get kicked out of another party because you wouldn’t stop asking questions, we’re getting fish tacos. And I _know_ you hate anything seafood-related on tortilla.”

“So do I,” Cisco said, making a face. “Like sea boogers. _Nasty_.”

Iris _eep_ -ed and went on her toes to kiss Barry’s cheek. “My editor’s going to _love_ me. This could be a whole op-ed if I get it right —”

“Sounds like fun, but I’m not big on seeing my dinner in reverse, so I’ll be at the bar,” Diggle said, and patted Felicity on the shoulder. “Don’t get too feisty, kids.”

“Yo, could you—?” Barry asked, indicating Cisco like he was someone to babysit. “I might have to moderate this sit-down.”

On his way out, Diggle clipped Cisco by the arm and maneuvered him towards the bar, disregarding any indignation on the latter’s part. Barry was about to say something to Felicity (possibly a one-liner about fish tacos) when someone interrupted him.

“Dad always told me the Queens threw the best parties,” Lex said, tilting a glass of scotch towards the ceiling. “Now I know he wasn’t saying it just because he was completely plastered.”

“Lex,” Felicity said, adjusting her facial expression to reflect _zero_ of what Bruce’s (and her) investigation had turned up. “Thank you for coming.”

“You know me,” Lex said, shaking Barry’s hand enthusiastically (the latter looked taken aback). “Always up for a charitable occasion. Hi, Lex Luthor. Barry Allen, right?”

“Ri-ght,” he answered. “I’ve read a few of your articles in the _Applied AI Journal_. Very interesting stuff, Mr. Luthor.”

“Mr. Luthor’s my father. Call me Lex,” he said smoothly.

Meeting Alexander Luthor, Jr. for the first time (ages ago now) had been something of a surprise, not least because he looked more like a Silicon Valley coding expert than a young man in charge of a Fortune 500 enterprise, but also because she frequently had to stop herself from wondering how someone could be so smart and so unspeakably arrogant, all in one casual package. Which wasn’t to say she hadn’t met her share of eccentric business counterparts. Ray Palmer was the perfect example of how the same combo could still be remarkably endearing, albeit occasionally exasperating. Felicity had no interest whatsoever in prying, but whatever Lex had grown up with — issues or just plain personality — it was like someone had taken said traits and cranked the dial up to _eleven_ , just for the hell of it.

The gist of which was reflected in his casual dismissal of unspoken etiquette. Though the invitation hadn’t exactly specified black tie, Felicity didn’t want to imagine the look on Thea’s face if and when she spotted one of the world’s richest CEOs in attendance at the gala, wearing a pair of shiny-new Converse and an AC/DC t-shirt beneath a black blazer.

Not unlike Cisco’s _out-there_ code of dress, but Felicity wasn’t about to tell him that, just in case his head exploded from the _mad_ at being compared to his quasi-nemesis.

“So we have the CEO of Queen Industries,” he said, pointing to each of them in turn, “head of the Central City crime lab…and I’m sorry, I do _not_ know your name.”

Iris was completely unfazed. “Iris West-Allen, _Central City Picture News_ ,” she said, holding out her hand. “What’s your stance on the trend towards ethical investments? Is LexCorp going to raise its moral standards and end weapons manufacturing for the government?”

“Interesting.” Lex cocked an eyebrow. “Nothing against your paper, Ms. West-Allen, but I usually do my press sit-downs at my office, not at a private party. We’re all here for a good cause, and to charity — money is money, even to the more delicate consciences.”

Iris narrowed her eyes. “What about the delicate consciences that brand you a warmonger?”

“Iris,” Felicity said. Even if she was used to her _cut-the-crap_ style (and even if Lex’s sunny personality had a way of bringing out the best in people), there were still niceties to observe.

Namely a few drinks and a smile, before calling someone an arms racketeer to their face.

Lex gave a twitch of his fingers, as if to say it was all right, and leaned forward a little, a slight quirk to his mouth that was more challenge than defensiveness. “I’d be interested to see if _CC Picture News_ actually ends up taking a stance on something,” he said. “Here I thought your paper mostly ran front-page stories about some lunatic in a red suit running around faster than the speed of light — or is that only when he rescues cats out of trees?”

“We report on the Flash to keep him honest,” Iris answered. “Accountability to the people.”

Lex snorted. “A man who hides his face behind a mask can’t seriously be called _honest_.”

The conversation was skirting dangerously close to thin ice, especially because of the parties involved. Felicity gave Barry a look, and saw that he was in agreement. “Look, guys, we’re all here for a good cause,” he said placatingly, even though the aforementioned _lunatic in red mask_ was his unofficial stage name. “How about we leave the serious talk for another time?”

“I agree, w—” Felicity almost yelped from the tension when someone ran a hand down her arm, but it turned out to be Oliver, back from his conversation with Celia Castle.

“Man of the hour,” Lex said, lifting his glass again in a small toast. “Welcome to our little practice debate, Mr. Queen. Saw your campaign speech the other day on healthcare — I liked it, very natural.”

“Mr. Luthor,” Oliver said politely, though Felicity could sense his silent appraisal (along with the bracing tension in his shoulders). “Nice to finally put a face to the name. I hope you’re enjoying your time in Starling.”

Oliver was most definitely getting better at avoiding areas of untruth, namely how Felicity and Bruce had been using the merger as a Trojan horse of sorts, as a chance to get a closer look at LexCorp under the guise of cooperation.

“Oh, Metropolis has its perks,” Lex shrugged. “But we’re all a little biased towards our own cities, aren’t we? You should know — of all the places to costume up for, you chose a city with a history of yearly terrorist attacks.”

“That was seven years ago,” Oliver corrected, without sharpness. “I think we can all agree the city’s taken massive steps forward.”

Lex cocked his head slightly. “All a matter of opinion, isn’t it?”

“I’m still waiting to hear yours, Mr. Luthor,” Iris reminded him, her phone still positioned neatly on top of her bag. “I think everyone’s interested to know where the world stands on the Justice League, especially on such an important milestone.”

“In answer to one of your _many_ questions, Ms West-Allen, I think the Justice League was an interesting solution proposed to a problem that scared a lot of people, and people do some _remarkable_ things when they’re scared,” Lex said, enunciating each syllable with nearly condescending care. “Now, in the vein of _quid pro quo_ , how do all four of you cross paths? I’m sure I’ve picked up the unauthorized biographies of you two —” he indicated Felicity and Oliver “—but none of them mention the Central City CSI, or the Pulitzer Prize reporter. What’s the story there?”

Lex chose that moment to nurse a slow sip of his drink, watching the four of them over his glass.

Oliver — thank _god_ — didn’t do the shifty look in Barry’s direction, and vice versa, because anyone as close as they were (especially with such diverging career tracks) was bound to entail a short leap in logic from the Green Arrow to Central City’s resident speedster. So Felicity assumed her most convincing frown and pretended to recall how exactly Oliver and Barry had met (trying to figure out abstract problems like the exact shade orange and turquoise made when combined was super helpful). “Break-in at one of the warehouses, wasn’t it?” she prompted, as if all of them didn’t already know the answer and were _desperate_ not to reveal secret identities. “The police department _freaked_ out about that one.”

“Right, it was…Applied Sciences,” Oliver said, snapping his fingers like he’d just remembered. “Barry came over to help out from the CSI division.”

Barry shrugged modestly. “My captain thought one guy lifting an industrial centrifuge onto his back and walking right out was something worth investigating — go figure.”

“Huh,” Lex said. “My math might be a little off, but Queen Consolidated must have been — what — ten, eleven years ago? Between all the terrorist attacks and QC’s ex-CEO being on trial — not to mention the board of directors coup — I’m surprised Oliver Queen made a point of remembering _one_ CSI from Central City.”

He let the point — along with all its implications — hang tantalizingly in the air while he took another sip. “I guess you really are a people person, Mr Queen,” he concluded. “Nice to know someone like that still exists in politics.”

It was like each second wound the conversational thread even tighter, until it was hazardously close to snapping. Felicity didn’t realize how hard her fingernails were digging into her palm until Oliver’s hand loosened her death-grip, the coolness of his skin soothing the throb in her veins.

“I think we’ve taken up enough of your time, Mr. Luthor,” Iris said calmly. “I’d really like to pick this up sometime, maybe for a longer piece?”

“I think your style of interviewing means I should have enough time to prep myself,” Lex said breezily. “Call my office and we’ll set something up. Very nice to meet you, Ms. West-Allen, Mr. West-Allen.”

If either of them took issue at the tone of dismissal, the worrying implication that Lex at the very least _suspected_ something was enough to put them all on the defensive.

“Mr. Luthor,” Barry said, before walking away with Iris.

Every instinct in Felicity’s body wanted him to run — as counterproductive as it was — _fast_.

Lex seemed to be the only one thoroughly enjoying himself. “So,” he said. “Where were we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE NOT SEEN BATMAN V SUPERMAN. So I don't know what Lex I'm basing this one off of. I did have Jesse Eisenberg in mind, but I've heard some godawful things about his version of Lex Luthor (plus the movie itself), which is a pity, because I like the idea of him being in a superhero movie. Not particularly as Lex, but a superhero movie in general. Sigh.


	16. Four, Three, Two

Oliver had seen his fair share of conversational barbs. His mother had been the unspoken master of turning perfectly courteous compliments into verbal twists of a _very_ painful knife, and Luthor’s inferences were an acute refresher course in those barbs, albeit lacking the same subtlety of polite (at least on the face of it) social interaction.

“All the money raised here tonight will go back to where it should — the city,” Felicity explained. “The party — the venue — they were all paid for by the League.”

“Sounds very palatable,” Lex said, accepting a fresh glass of whisky delivered by a waiter. “Though it begs the question as to _why_ the city even needs compensation — sorry, Freudian slip — _charitable contributions_ — to begin with. Maybe your team could hold back on kicking through walls and try a door sometime.”

Felicity laughed, even though the conversation drew tenser by the second, stretched as taut as a piano wire. “Have you met a criminal, Mr. Luthor? They're not exactly shy about avoiding breakables when they start spraying bullets. My team always makes up for the property damage — even if we didn’t kick through the wall.”

“I'm sure you do, Mrs. Queen,” Lex said courteously. “But I still have some concerns, my faith in you as an individual notwithstanding.”

Oliver had largely been silent throughout the exchange, but he spoke up then, with a slight edge he knew only Felicity would recognize. “And what _would_ put your concerns at ease, Mr Luthor?”

“Mr Luthor's my father. Call me Lex,” he said easily. “And I'm glad you asked, Mr. Queen. See, my unsolvable problem is — I have...an _issue..._ with handing off the policing of our streets to a group of people we barely understand, who aren’t being honest about their identities —” a look in their direction “—most of the time, anyway, not to mention any past criminal records. To allow a group like that — more powerful than we could ever imagine — work unsupervised as some kind of… _outsourced_ law enforcement, minus the government contracts…that seems negligent at best, and downright stupid at worst. Where is the government oversight? Where is the accountability?”

“If you've read the ARGUS files, you know why Justice League has a reluctance to have the government run our operations,” Oliver answered. “We’ve always cooperated fully with the city leadership, but the Justice League has never been a governmental institution. Our members are not government agents, and we’d never ask them to publicly disclose their identities unless they wanted to do so.”

“A distinction I'm _sure_ will not be blurred when — knock on wood —” Lex surveyed his surroundings for something wooden and came up short. “Hm. Figure of speech, I guess. Anyway, I’m sure the line won’t get a little murky once you assume the role of Mayor. You see my conundrum here, Mr. Queen. It’s an unsolvable problem: having… _gods_ watch over our homes and worshipped where they deign to step. Every time the Flash saves a little old lady being robbed in grocery store parking lot, it makes the front page. Granted, Starling City's a little more cynical than the Midwest folk down there, but for a self-touted vigilante who dresses as Robin Hood to be propelled to the front of a mayoral poll? It’s a different time we live in, isn't it?”

Felicity laid a hand on Oliver’s arm as he was about to answer. “I can't speak for my husband, but I know his campaign and it's not based on Robin Hood vigilantism — trust me on that one, because I tried to have some designer input in his ads. I may be a little biased on the subject, but he’s a good candidate. He has _real_ plans to change the way things work in Starling City, and I'm not entirely sure I like what you're insinuating, Lex.”

Oliver shook his head slightly, because the last thing he wanted to do was upset the delicate balance of Felicity’s covert investigation into Lex Luthor. It was a small, wordless gesture that everything was all right — at least on his end — and he turned back to Luthor.

“Mr. Luthor, I understand your concerns, valid as they are, but sometimes, things have to hang on trust. I’ve worked hard to earn the trust of the voters, and my city, and I think I have. There's never going to be a hundred-percent certainty on anything, so what we have is trust — and to the less cynical — _hope_. That's what I'm running on, and your support — even somewhere down the line — would mean a lot.”

Luthor made a face. “ _Hope_. Sounds a little Boy Scout to me. With a little more neck-snapping and arrow-related fatalities than Merit badges, if I'm being candid.”

“A little _too_ candid,” Felicity muttered, her tone vaguely mutinous.

All three of them were still for a millisecond too long, before breaking into obligatory polite laughter.

“Hey,” said Luthor. “We’re all friends here, right? Minus Bruce — which I’m a little disappointed about, if I’m being honest. No disrespect to present company, but no one’s better at Bruce Wayne when it comes to enjoying a blowout.”

“Something came up,” Felicity said easily. “A meeting at Sotheby’s — I think.”

“Ah, and the tabloids strike gold. I heard the auction house hired a new antiquities dealer — very experienced, and _very_ Greek,” Lex remarked. “Can’t say I blame him on that one.”

He sighed, like they’d all just had a very satisfying conversation. “I’m sure I’ve taken up enough of your collective time. A candidate needs to mingle — and I’m due for a chat with Congressman Knight. Felicity, always a pleasure. Oliver, I look forward to working more closely with you in the future.”

With a tip of his glass, Luthor melted back into the crowd of guests.

Oliver waited until he was out of earshot before he said it. “Over my dead body,” he muttered.

“Suffice it to say, I am having very strong urges to use Cisco’s genital-related designation for our yuppie friend,” Felicity said, watching him go. “BTW, need me to check your back for prints? Because that usually happens after you let someone _walk_ all over you in their thousand-dollar Italian shoes.”

Oliver frowned at the thought of Luthor’s sneakers. “His shoes didn’t look Italian.”

“ _Not. The. Point_ ,” she said through her teeth. “I'm having trouble choosing my words over intense feelings of dislike.”

“Him, or me?” he asked teasingly.

“Up for deba— _whoa_ —” She never got to finish the thought, because Oliver pulled them away from the table and onto the dance floor.

Felicity half-collided into his chest, her hands in his, surrounded by other dancing couples. “You’re doing this to distract me, aren’t you?” she asked, looking dubiously up at him.

In lieu of an answer, Oliver led them seamlessly into the slow rotation around the marble floor. “Some people are never going to see eye-to-eye with you, no matter how much you try. I've learned to pick my battles.”

Felicity eyed him speculatively. “I do believe you've become wise, Mr Queen.”

Oliver bent to put his lips near her ear. “Comes with age,” he whispered.

“Practice,” she corrected.

“Whatever you say, honey.”

* * *

 

“So how do you think we did on that one?” Felicity asked, after a decent amount of time spent _not_ bumping into couples mid-dance. “Not the smoothest cover-up, but I guess we’ve all had a little champagne.”

Oliver made a thoughtful sound. “Depends on how you define _success._ I think Luthor might know more than he’s letting on about Barry, but I also think he likes to needle people to let them know who’s on top.”

“Never was a truer thing said by someone in politics,” she said heavily. “So, safe to say that we’ll end up telling our kids that Santa and the Easter bunny don’t exist?”

Oliver shrugged. “It was about time they found out, anyway.”

“Why do we keep having parties?” Felicity sighed. “And why do all of them end up being this stressful?”

“Part and parcel of being a Queen,” Oliver said. “I’m sorry — I know you’ve never liked these things.”

“I like champagne and open bars, and I _like_ you in suspenders,” she corrected him. “I hate having conversations where no one says what they mean. It’s already hard enough stopping myself from Freudian-slipping all over the place — throw in innuendos and double meanings and _reporters_ it’s just _bleh_ —”

Felicity inhaled a little too enthusiastically between run-on sentences and choked, which wasn’t embarrassing at all, not in the middle of the graceful dancing couples, beneath a sea of winking golden stars. But Oliver looked down at her like it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen, a completely unabashed grin on his face.

“You know I always say what I mean, don’t you?” he said.

Felicity considered the statement in light of Oliver’s attractive qualities, which were few and far between, if she was being _very_ honest. “It’s one of the _many_ things I love about you,” she said, as they swayed gently to the music. “Why is that? Most married couples have a _few_ secrets, you know. Like a secret tattoo they got lasered off — okay, maybe not that one. Wait, when you say you don’t mind when I give you the olives in my salad, you’re not lying, right?”

“No, but I _am_ lying when you ask me if I touched your ice cream in the freezer,” he answered, straight-faced. “Hazel and I have a little tradition going. She tells me what happened in school if I make her a sundae.”

“ _No_ ,” she breathed. “ _Not_ the mint choc chip.”

“With whipped cream and chocolate sauce.”

“You _monster_.”

The mock-seriousness held for about two seconds before they cracked, and Felicity — breathless from laughter — leaned her chin on Oliver’s shoulder, her arms around him as they danced.

“The reason I don’t lie to you…isn’t because I know you’ll see right through me anyway,” he said quietly. “You told me to think about family today, and I have. My parents didn’t exactly have the best example of a marriage — between Tempest and the affairs and the _secrets_ …”

“Line forms behind me,” Felicity agreed. “Super-villain dad and all.”

A smile flickered across Oliver’s face at her mild teasing. “I don’t lie to you because I made a promise to myself — a _choice_ not to be my parents. I don’t lie to you because that’s not who we are. We are a team — you and me — we have a life together, and I love you, enough to try every single day to deserve what you’ve given me.”

Felicity’s expression grew serious again, all joking aside. “ _Oliver_. You do,” she said, and it sounded like a promise of its own. “You do deserve all this. Don’t ever doubt that.”

Oliver twirled her around and brought her close again, his hands low on her waist. “You know me,” he said in her ear. “I never know when to give up.”

Felicity held onto his hand when he spun her out again, opening her eyes wide to the stars above them, the warmth of being surrounded by friends, and someone she trusted more than she’d ever thought she could — smiling just for her. She didn’t want to forget a single moment, not this — not ever. Whatever came next.

“Whatever comes next,” she whispered, and Oliver nodded.

* * *

 

“Do you think I should have gone with the yellow?” Donna asked, seemingly unaware that she was being towed in the opposite direction of the departing guests in a combined effort from her husband and daughter. “What if coral made me look fat in the photos?”

“You look gorgeous, baby,” Quentin assured her. “That’s the best thing I’ve seen you in so far.”

Donna giggled and pulled teasingly at his lapel, which Felicity attributed to the free-flowing party champagne — _not_ any private adult stuff they did on the down-low. “ _Pooh-bear_ , that’s not what you said on our anniversary, when I —”

“ _Donna_ ,” Quentin said, flushing from his neck to his ears.

“ _Gah!_ ” Felicity yelped, before her mother could scar her for life with some A-grade _TMI_. “How about we keep that kind of thing on a need-to-know basis, huh? Especially since we still have to look each other in the eye for the high holidays.”

“But _ho-ney_ , you know you can ask me for advice anytime you want,” Donna cooed, stroking Felicity’s cheek with a ring-spangled hand. “There’s no shame in putting on a little magic for your special day. I knew this showgirl who used to glue rhinestones on her —”

Felicity covered her mouth to hold back the mildly nauseating mental picture. “Mom, I am actually _begging_ you not to finish.”

“That’s the idea!” Donna laughed, clapping her hands.

_Done_. That was it. Felicity was so — incredibly — _done._

She spun on her heel, feeling like she’d defaulted back to startup mode. “Gonna…run into a wall,” she muttered. “Forced — reboot — _bye_.”

It was by sheer force of will that she avoided crashing into any of the tables or the depleted champagne tower, on her way to find the others amidst the winding-down of a _truly_ successful party.

Diggle — in semi-decommissioned mode with his sleeves rolled up and bowtie loosened — pulled out a chair for her as she approached, along with a cup of much-needed coffee to counteract the tipsiness. “I didn’t think we’d manage to pull off a party without one explosion,” he said, in humorous disbelief. “We’re setting all kinds of records today, aren’t we?”

Felicity snorted as she stirred sugar into the caffeinated pick-me-up. “Don’t jinx it,” she said, jabbing her thumb towards the dance floor, where Constantine was doing something with burning poker cards while Curtis and Cisco resolutely danced to old eighties music. Iris and Roy were pretending to bartend for Thea and Lyla, all of them laughing at the scene unfolding at their feet. Connor was attempting to demonstrate the cartwheel for Sara and Barry — somehow the only _truly_ sober trio in the house, the former due to legal drinking age restrictions and a some _very_ good parenting, the latter due to a superhuman metabolism that nipped any form of _buzz_ right in the bud.

Diggle looked up at Oliver’s approach, in a similar state of the after-party, albeit with his tux jacket off somewhere and his hands in his pockets (hello suspenders). “That’s all of them?” he asked.

Oliver nodded, reaching up to undo his bow tie. “All of them,” he said tiredly.

“ _Good_ ,” Diggle said, and promptly dragged out another chair to prop his feet up on. “My knees are killing me.”

_Feet-on-chair_ was a de-stressing activity that Felicity participated in wholeheartedly, discarding her glittering heels and freeing her aching toes. “It’s all those superhero landings,” she teased, and leaned back to receive Oliver’s kiss on the lips. “Are the kids down?”

“Connor said they were all asleep in the backroom when he checked.” Oliver glanced at his watch. “Post-hide and seek.”

Felicity silently thanked the gods of ice cream and Netflix that their kids hadn't been born immune to post-food fatigue. “Let’s make sure they’re really out before we do the tuck-ins.”

Diggle eyed little Sara, busy clapping as Connor did another monkey-like somersault across the floor. “No offense — but _that_ is starting to tickle some of my less amiable instincts.”

Oliver leaned on the back of Felicity’s chair, the two of them well aware to what he referred. “Line forms behind me,” he agreed.

“I know Connor’s a good kid, but I still want to shoot him,” Diggle muttered. “Lyla and I worked out a plan — good to go when baby Sara ever starts dating, which is hopefully _never_.”

“Let me guess — involving some kind of ruse and cleaning a shotgun?” Felicity said.

Diggle pointed at her. “Lyla’ll feed him some casserole or dip or lemonade, and then she’ll tell him that she’s a senator and she’s authorized to track threats to national security. Which is where I come in — to tell the unlucky SOB that I put a nano-tracker in his food, so if he takes my baby girl so much as an _inch_ off the itinerary, which he’ll have to turn over in advance, I’ll know.”

Apparently satisfied, Diggle leaned back slightly in his chair, arms folded behind his head. “How’s that for a plan?”

Oliver whistled. “Nice.”

Felicity felt like taking a hard look at all her contingency safety strategies involving the kids. “Makes our plan look like — well — like _any_ other plan Team Arrow comes up with, which is to say _zilch_. I was just gonna tell Hazel and Tommy that they’ll get cooties if they kiss a boy — or girl. Just no kissing. No kissing whatsoever.”

Diggle raised his eyebrows. “Did you two get better at lying since last Christmukkah?”

Thoroughly unconcerned by his best friend’s friendly jab, Oliver massaged Felicity’s shoulders in a much-appreciated back rub. “We told them that the Wifi only works when they eat their vegetables, and that’s working out so far,” he said. “They couldn’t imagine living without technology, thanks to this one.”

Felicity reached around her chair to deliver a well-aimed slap. “Ungrateful. I’m the reason your artichoke casserole doesn’t get left on the table.”

Oliver kissed the side of her head with a laugh. “We should make a move soon,” he said. “Home.”

“ _Uff_ ,” Felicity protested, but let him pull her upright. “Only if you promise to carry them. I might explode if I pick anything up in this dress — and not in a fun way.”

“How about we take one end each? You take the head, and I’ll take the feet,” he suggested.

Felicity slapped him again, loping arm in arm with her husband towards the makeshift nursery. “Stop being funny.”

Oliver leaned on the knob to open it, and the light from the open doorway fell in a broad swathe across four sleeping faces: Andrea, Henry, Hazel, and —

“Tommy?” Felicity said, scanning the shadows for her son.

The tiny faces stirred, frowns forming at being woken abruptly, but no response from him — nothing. Oliver had gone very still beside her, and she knew — even before she tried again — that something had gone very, _very_ wrong.

“Tommy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUUUUUUUUN.


	17. Pied Piper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooooo. Yes, I know you hate me. But in my defense, bet you weren't expecting an update so quickly, were you? :P  
> The title is NOT a reference to The Flash character, who by the way, is absolutely GORGEOUS. Hello, Mr. Potter-lookalike.

Oliver had trained for this. He’d trained — for years — to sharpen his focus when the need arose, to filter out distractions, to _concentrate_ on the one thing that demanded his attention.

The matter at hand.

The room was quiet, as still as an exhibit insulated behind glass. Besides the lights and the children, nothing had been moved, nothing had been disturbed.

Good. Remain detached. He was at his strongest when he was focused, when his instincts were sharp and his mind unclouded. He had to think as a hunter, not…

Not as the hunted.

No _— no_.

Oliver forced a deep breath — push it all back — and crouched by the makeshift bed. The sofa was draped with blankets, the fabric still in hollows and dimples from where the kids had been, as indiscriminately disorganized as a litter of puppies, completely lacking in self-consciousness as they dreamed.

Safe. Thinking they were. Because their parents, the people they trusted most in the world, had been barely a stone’s throw away.

His head jerked sharply to the side at the thought, and he quelled it — the dark impulse to blame — by laying a hand flat on the place where his son had slept. Hazel had been beside him, with Henry and Andrea on her other side. Tommy would have had his head on his sister’s back, maybe not at all — enough to let his abduction pass unnoticed.

But _how_?

Oliver tried to see it in his mind’s eye — the endless scenarios in which his son could have been taken. But the complete lack of struggle, the blanket half-spilled across the floor, it reminded him of Tommy’s room. In his son’s six years of life, the duvet had never once been straight on his bed in the mornings, because whatever curious and precocious things whirred silently inside Tommy’s head, he could still walk halfway down the stairs with the covers tucked around him before realizing what was going on.

So Tommy had gotten up. Oliver’s fingertips traced the slant of the fabric like it was a fragile relic that could crumble at the slightest breath, following it all the way down to the floor.

He’d walked away — curious, maybe — at a stranger’s voice, at the odd shape in the middle of the night, like the children who’d followed the Pied Piper into the dark…

The voices seemed to come from far away.

“ _Oliver_ ,” said Diggle, as if it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get his attention.

Oliver didn’t look around. “Do you have something?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Whoever did this was a pro,” Diggle answered. “I had my best guys stationed around the perimeter, and none of the guests saw anything — at least the ones we’ve interviewed so far.”

“Did you tell them?” Oliver said, more sharply than he intended. “John —”

Diggle never let him finish. “It’s not my first rodeo, Oliver. I kept it vague. They only need to think one of the guests lost some valuables, not…” He sighed, as though he regretted what he’d have to say next. “Not your son. Look —”

There was a soft rasp from behind him, and Oliver knew the sound from experience. It was an attempt to speak — fighting the sensation that his throat had sealed itself from speech and fumbling for the words, coming up short…

It was a sound that broke his heart, but they had their unspoken agreement. As much as he wanted to hold her close and just _stop_ everything — neither of them had the time, and if Oliver let himself be afraid, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“John,” Felicity said, in a voice like sandpaper. “Aegis Security isn't the only team with experience in abductions. We know. It’s not —” she paused, gathering herself again “—it’s not going to be pretty.”

Oliver shut his eyes for a moment, another dull ache somewhere in his chest. “You’re the expert here, John,” he said. “What happens next?”

To anyone who didn’t know John Diggle, they would have thought the abduction of his godson hadn’t affected him in the slightest. A small part of Oliver wished it were the case — that he could take his best friend’s calm at face value, instead of knowing better. Diggle could get angry, but he was better at reducing it to unnerving calm the same way Oliver defaulted to strategy, the same way Felicity hadn’t stopped the science-talk since they’d realized Tommy was gone.

The truth: Diggle was as rattled as they were, but it was for Tommy’s sake — family’s sake — that they remained in a state of forced calm. They all had a job to do, and they were damn well going to see it through.

“I usually ask clients to write down a list of names — anyone they can think of — anyone with access to the kid, anyone with a bone to pick, anyone looking for a grudge match,” Diggle said, laying it out for his two closest friends in the world, like they were clients sitting in front of him in one of the meeting rooms at his office.

Felicity made a noise partway between a bitter laugh and a sob. “Great, so that narrows it down to _everyone_. God, between the hero-ing and said hero-ing getting our son kidnapped, I did _not_ think it was possible to regret my life choices any more than I do right now.”

Diggle — like Oliver — knew it was better to keep pushing, rather than consider whether she really, truly meant it. “I’ve got Roy running down some leads right now. We’re eliminating everyone still in lockdown, and anyone with alibis, so hopefully we’ll be able to trim the list down soon.”

Oliver nodded for him to keep going.

“Your insurance will cover the ransom payment —”

No one voiced the very obvious fact that there had been a complete absence of a kidnapper’s message.

“—and it’s standard to expect a twenty-four hour window before the demands,” Diggle continued, like he couldn’t read their faces. “Kidnappers — smart ones, anyway — want to keep the loved ones in a state of confusion. Empty room and a note makes them panic and scramble to get the police involved, whatever the demands say. No note buys them more time to secure the asset before they start making noise about what they want.”

_If they have them._

“We’ll go through the security footage, see if there’s anything we might have missed. Even if the kidnapper’s a pro, it still might be able to tell us something about how they got Tommy out of here.”

“I’ll do it,” Felicity said.

Diggle’s concern was palpable. “Felicity —”

She was already peering into the corridor connecting the kitchens to the backroom and ballroom. “It’s pretty dark in here, but if I isolate the right filtering ratio I _should_ be able to enhance the frame and pick up anything we need to know. That reminds me — Barry and I were _just_ talking about this new software the CC crime lab was beta-ing — ORACLE could get a jump start on facial recognition.”

Oliver winced at the strained lightness in her tone, but he knew the feeling of wanting to keep moving — anything not to stand still. “I’ll hit the streets,” he said. “Felicity can keep me updated about locations —”

Diggle’s heavy hand descended on his shoulder, cutting him off mid-sentence. “The rest of the team can do that, but right now, the two of you need to go home.”

“I’m not —”

Diggle shook his head. “The last thing Hazel needs right now — after her brother’s gone missing — is to be alone at home, _even if_ —” this was in response to an impending interruption by Felicity “—her mom and dad are trying their best to find him. When the kidnappers send their demands, it’s usually to the home address. They need to reach you in order to tell you what they want, and you two need to be with your daughter. Let the rest of the team pick up the slack. We have a speedster and a magician, remember? Constantine said he’ll need something of Tommy’s to try his mumbo-jumbo.”

There was only silence, in response to a suggestion palatable to neither one of Tommy’s parents.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you voluntarily suggest magic before,” Felicity said finally. “Besides, it’s not like I have anywhere else to be — between my mother freaking out over loan sharks and asking us to keep dry ice handy in case we need to freeze a finger for emergency medical reattachment — sitting in a windowless basement and going through videos that may or may not include my son getting snatched from right under my nose? Cake-walk.”

A pause. Oliver squeezed his eyes shut again, as though the lights had suddenly turned piercing.

“ _Sorry_.” It was her turn to wince. “Sorry,” she repeated, softer this time, her fingers twisting into her hair, pulling the glossy curls free. “Poor choice of words. My thing.”

Oliver got to his feet then and reached for her wrists. Their eyes met — completely without warning — and another expanse of pain unfurled inside his chest. Between them, a single look had the capacity to convey sentences — _paragraphs_ — about what the other was thinking, but he knew the reason they’d subconsciously been avoiding each other’s gaze was because they couldn’t stand seeing the same fears reflected twice.

Too late now.

Oliver almost couldn’t speak.

“Call us if anything changes,” he said to Diggle. “We’ll take Hazel home.”

Felicity’s fingers curled into a tight fist at the back of his shirt, because she didn’t like it any more than he did.

* * *

“She’s still asleep,” Thea reported, back from her half-hourly checkup on Hazel, temporarily relocated into the master bedroom under her grandparents’ watch. “I left the bathroom light on and baby monitor on the nightstand, just in case.”

“Thanks, Thea,” Felicity said gratefully. “Do you want to crash in your old room? You don’t have to stay up with us.”

Thea was already pouring out cup of coffee, utilizing amounts of cream and sugar that even Barry would have winced at. “Are you kidding?” she said. “Someone cradle-snatched my nephew. If I go to sleep, I swear some part of me is gonna sleepwalk all the way down to the basement and start breaking sparring dummies. I’m staying awake until I can punch that kidnapping son of a bitch myself.”

“Word,” Cisco said, before anyone else could respond.

“Felicity, if there’s _anything_ we can do,” said Iris, “tell us. Barry could be back here in a heartbeat.”

“Isn’t it more like half an hour?” Felicity said lightly. “Running speed, and all that.”

“Kinda wish I’d installed that Zeta plate in the Watchtower,” Cisco said, looking like he wanted to kick himself. “Matter transfer via specific frequency radiation’s looking pretty good right about now.”

“Are you sure you want us back in Central City?” Iris asked again. “We’re happy to stay until…”

Mercifully, she let the sentence hang.

Felicity shook her head and zipped another bag of Raisa’s cookies into Barry’s suitcase. “No,” she said, decidedly. “If we’re right about the bad stuff, we’ll need a containment facility for the Shade up and running. We’re a little short on detainment cells in the Watchtower, and STAR Labs has the best chance of coming up with one. Besides, Oliver and I feel a lot better knowing you guys are getting Connor home.”

Iris looked like she didn’t favor either option particularly much, but all of them were uneasy. Henry or Andrea or Hazel could have been the one taken, and it was close — too close.

“How d’you think it’s going up there?” Cisco wondered, with an upward glance.

Felicity followed his gaze towards the stairs. She could hear the faint sounds of disagreement among the Queen family, along with Barry, who’d been designated as the main chaperone for the Central City return trip.

“Some holiday, right?” she said, and her throat clenched so tight that it stung. “Happy Justice Day.”

“ _Don’t_.” Thea took Felicity’s hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “It’s no one’s fault. No one except the bastard who took Tommy.”

Felicity was grateful for the sisterly support, and made what she hoped could pass for a smile. It felt more like a grimace, so she stopped.

But the look Iris gave her son Henry — halfway across the room — said more about what she understood than words were capable of, and the two mothers hugged each other in a moment of terrified clarity.

“I know,” Iris whispered. “I know.”

* * *

“You’re _kidding_ me,” Connor said, refusing to budge from his perch at the foot of the bed, creased tuxedo and all. “You can’t send me packing.”

“Technically, your dad’s the one doing the packing,” Barry pointed out, which made Connor shoot his de facto uncle the dirtiest look possible in lieu of actual words.

The bedroom looked like a maelstrom had opened up in the floor, from the way clothes and books and mismatched shoes were spread over all available surfaces. Oliver was neat by habit, and the continued tidiness of the room he shared with Felicity had been a result of her passively refraining from adding to the disorder while he cleaned up after the fact. What he hadn’t prepared for was the active resistance of a teenager who unequivocally did _not_ want to be sent home, whose response was to seize anything Oliver managed to pack and throw it halfway across the room like he was trying out for the Starling City Rockets.

Carefully maintaining an expression of calm, Oliver folded a few more shirts into Connor’s crumpled duffel. “I’ve called your mother and explained everything to her — she’s going to pick you up at the tarmac when your flight lands.”

Connor half-wrenched the bag out of Oliver’s reach. “Tommy’s my _brother_ ,” he snarled. “You can’t just send me away like this. Not until I know he’s okay!”

His son had always been something of a hothead, and Oliver had to remind himself that the fury in Connor’s voice wasn’t directed at him — but the situation, that the palpable sense of betrayal behind his words was out of concern for his younger brother. It had to be, it had to be.

“Barry and the others are going to make sure you get home safe. I’m not taking any chances,” he said flatly. “I’m not changing my mind, Connor.”

Connor looked like he wanted to tear out someone’s hair, he just hadn’t decided whose. “I know you’re rattled, but you can’t just shove everybody into boxes and expect them to do what you want them to. I’m _not_ a kid anymore, dad. I have as much right to be here as anybody — and I want to stay.”

Behind Connor’s back, Barry raised his eyebrows at Oliver and mouthed a _wow_. As much as Oliver admired his son’s ability to stand his ground (a Queen through and through), there was a part of him that just — _didn’t_ — have the time to make an impulsive, ready-to-take-on-the-world teenager understand the stakes they were facing.

Oliver dropped another T-shirt into Connor’s bag. “I appreciate that,” he said, very clearly. “But it’s still a no.”

Barry silently lowered his face into his waiting hand. Connor’s mouth dropped open, but before he could gear up for the indignant retort, Oliver raised his hand and cut him off.

“No,” he summarized. “No. Connor, I appreciate how much you love your brother — I really do — but you are _my_ son, and this is still my house. I promised your mother I’d keep you safe, and right now the safest place for you is not in Starling City.”

Connor made a sound of frustration. “It’s not just that, okay? _I_ was supposed to be watching Tommy. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on him — but I left him in that room because I thought…it’s _my_ fault he got taken. I need to help get him back.”

Even if Barry didn’t tell him, Oliver could see Connor had taken on more than a fair share of the family resemblance. Apart from looks and a blazing temper, he’d inherited the ugly instinct to take on the weight of the world, to shoulder the blame, whatever the truth of the situation.

Oliver really didn’t need more reminders of how he’d screwed up as a parent, and his priority was to get Connor home safe. “Barry and the others are leaving in an hour. I hope you will be in the car with them, but I should warn you that your mother gave me full permission to use a light sedative if you put up a fight. I’ve shot uncle Roy with tranquilizer arrows before —”

“—don’t forget all those times Felicity and Diggle used them on you,” Barry volunteered.

“—yes, thank you,” Oliver answered. “Failing that, Barry could get you to the airport before you have time to blink, so please don’t fight me on this.”

Connor looked utterly appalled.

“ _Uncle_ _Barry_ ,” he demanded. “You’re not seriously okay with this, right? I’ve worked in a crime lab — I know coding — I can _help_.”

There was a part of Oliver that thought Barry’s almost-silence — and the stillness in the corner, as opposed to using his super-speed to finish the reluctant packing — had been an indication of dissent. It was hard to believe he’d stood with Barry in the Watchtower just hours before, promising his help, anytime, anywhere.

It was ironic how quickly they had to draw on favors around here.

Barry reached for a catcher’s mitt and placed it squarely in the waiting bag. “Your dad wants to make sure you’re safe,” he said. “You should listen to him.”

If Oliver thought Connor looked betrayed before, he _definitely_ looked it now. But Barry only stared back at him, a look that he personally recognized between himself and Felicity, whenever they didn’t want to say something in front of the twins and preferred to leave it for a private conversation.

Connor showed every sign of wanting to stand his ground, but to Oliver’s surprise, he turned and grabbed a sweatshirt from the bed. “Fine,” he snapped, heading towards the bathroom in the hall. “ _Fine_.”

There were a few more choice expletives Oliver chose not to process, but he waited until the door slammed before turning to Barry. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Barry answered. “I know it’s a stupid question, and I probably know your answer already, but how are you doing?”

“It’s my fault,” Oliver said simply.

Barry let his head drop to his chest, a wordless sigh of exasperation. “There it is. Tell me how someone else’s _deliberate_ actions can be your fault. Really.”

“Why else would someone take a six-year-old boy, Barry?” Oliver said, feeling the bite behind his words. “Don’t pretend to be naive. You know _exactly_ why it’s my fault.”

“Because being a good person and a hero painted a target on your family’s backs?” Barry returned. “Even if that’s true — which, _believe me_ , it isn’t — you can’t possibly be sorry about doing the right thing for your city.”

Oliver shut his eyes, shielding the throb at the back of his skull from the piercing glare of the overhead lights. All he could hear was what Celia Castle had said to him, as a courtesy.

_You’ve kept your family safe so far — figure out a way to keep them safe again, or the results won’t be pretty, I promise you that._

“Mayor Castle warned me at the party,” he said. “She warned me that I had to find a way to keep my family safe…and I didn’t listen.”

“Yeah, but to be fair, I’m pretty sure the grace period before acting on the advice of political rivals is — what — three to five working days at least,” Barry said pointedly. “There’s nothing wrong with having a conscience, even if yours could use some tuning down, but it’s another thing to take responsibility for something bad that someone else did, for no good reason. There’s no excuse for someone kidnapping a child, and the last thing you should be doing — you _or_ Felicity — is taking on the blame. We’ll find Tommy, Oliver. I promise you that.”

Oliver didn’t trust himself to speak, so he nodded, and turned back to the bed.

“Hey,” Barry said quietly. “Connor’s a lot more like you than you realize. You may think sending him home is going to keep him out of the fight, but it won’t work forever.”

“Are you going to tell me about the weight of the world on my shoulders?” Oliver asked, with a flicker of dark humor. “I know.”

Barry looked at him for the longest time without speaking. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Something like that.”

* * *

In his worst nightmares, Oliver never thought the day was going to end like this. For a day meant to be about hope, and family, there was something quietly crushing about the way everything drew to a close.

Connor was still in the moody stage of resistance, stubbornly avoiding Oliver’s eye and staying as still as a block of wood when hugged. But Oliver did it anyway.

“Call me when you get home, okay?” he said. “Promise me, Connor.”

There was a chance his son might have muttered something rude, but after a poke from Felicity he acquiesced. “Fine,” he grunted. “I will.”

Oliver patted him firmly on the back and moved away to let them board the car. Barry slammed the boot shut and went immediately to hug Felicity.

“Call us if you need anything,” he said. “I’ll be here as soon as I can.”

Felicity squeezed her eyes shut. “Thank you, Barry.”

“I’ll start working with Caitlin on the containment cell,” Cisco promised, his head turning between Oliver and Felicity like he desperately needed them to hear it. “I’ll courier whatever new gear we have over to Starling, as soon as it’s off the belt. Whatever you need, guys. I’m _so_ here.”

Oliver nodded and clasped Cisco’s hand. Iris stepped up to hug him. “It’ll be okay,” she whispered, chafing his back in reassurance. “He’s a smart boy.”

Shoes crunching on the loose gravel, Felicity came back to stand by Oliver, letting the others get into the car that would take them straight to the QI jet. Connor hesitated briefly after throwing his bag onto the seat, but made a beeline straight for his dad and hugged again him gruffly, without preamble.

“Keep me in the loop, okay?” he said.

“I will,” Oliver promised. “Stay safe.”

The corner of Connor’s mouth twitched, like he’d been about to make a lighthearted joke, even if it would have done nothing to raise the black mood of the circumstances.

Instead, he settled for the promise Oliver badly needed to hear.

“I will, dad,” he said. “Cross my heart.”

They stood in the driveway for what seemed like an eternity, even after the car’s headlights had vanished into the grove of trees. There was a brief flash of white as the glow made contact with the parting gates, and the sound of the engine gradually died away.

“He’ll be okay,” Felicity said. “Barry’s with him.”

Oliver wanted very badly to believe she was right. “I hope so,” he answered, and together, they turned back towards the house, to face whatever waited for them inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on 4x17:  
> \- Didn't think it was possible to have so many bee puns in one episode  
> \- Donna Smoak is gold. Enough said.  
> \- Quentin probably had the best one-liners. That man's snark is much-needed.  
> \- Curtis is a complete cutie, and I'm not complaining about the technical assistance, but surely the secret lair elevator is NOT accessed just by touching the wall in front of it, right???? I mean, really?????  
> \- Slightly disappointed douche board member did not bite the big one.  
> \- Cannot believe Arrow is going on ANOTHER hiatus after next week.   
> \- I think husband Paul is going to bite the big one at some point. NOOOOOO. STOP BREAKING UP COUPLES, ARROW WRITERS. Better still - STOP LAUNCHING HEROES BY KILLING LOVED ONES. STAHP.  
> \- I'll be completely honest - totally forgot the Canary Cry even existed until she used it this episode. That thing really does vanish all the time, doesn't it? :P


	18. Game, Afoot

“I touched nothing,” Raisa said, hovering in the doorway like she wasn’t supposed to go any further, like it was already some kind of crime scene, something inviolable and perversely sacred. “Everything is the same,” she promised.

Felicity felt Oliver’s hand find hers, and it was a brief — almost painful — press of his fingers, like neither of them could stand quite straight without holding on. The layout of the kids’ room had largely stayed the same since the day they’d all come home from the hospital, exhausted and sleep-deprived but god, so — _so_ — ready to do it all over again. Pale green walls and birds as orange as rhododendrons stenciled on the walls, identical beds on either sides of the room, the bewitched mobile that Zatanna and Mari had given them still rippling in the sway of an invisible breeze…

Something stuck in Felicity’s throat, and she backed into the doorframe, feeling the smooth edges jut against her spine. Running her fingertips against the glossy wood, she could almost feel the tiny pencil marks painstakingly recording the changes in the twins’ height on every birthday.

Hazel pouting because Tommy was a quarter inch taller than she was at four. The year they’d both clocked in at the exact same height, and a fact most vehemently disputed. Felicity balancing a ruler on both their heads until they agreed that _yes_ , when everyone’s hair was pushed flat, they were just as tall — and as beautiful — as each other. Oliver — laughing — getting lined up against the wall on his birthday so Felicity could mark his height too (teetering precariously on her toes with the twins clinging onto her knees), and barely a month later, Oliver hoisting Tommy up so he could do the same to his mother…

She was going to be sick.

“I’ll need something of his,” said Constantine.

He’d appeared so quietly — catlike in his silence — that Felicity would have jumped, if her whole body didn’t feel like it was made of lead. The magician (or master of the dark arts, dabbler, whatever he was calling himself these days) lingered respectfully at the doorway like Raisa, peering into the stillness of the children’s room.

Oliver cleared his throat like he’d been far away in his thoughts too. “Come in, John.”

“A toy, a blanket, something with his presence. It’ll have to be dear to him — to maximize our chances of following his spirit.”

Felicity looked sharply around at the last word, because of its terrible implications, and Constantine quickly shook his head. “Not like that, love. Everyone has a spirit, living or…or otherwise. The possession will focus the scrying circle so I can latch onto your boy.”

She felt Oliver’s hand at the base of her spine, and she nodded, taking strength from the reassurance. Tommy’s bed was the messier one, red and blue by choice, books on a shelf behind his head (and within easy reach), a few discarded socks lying on the bed from when Oliver had helped him dress earlier that day.

Her chest tightened at the soft, milky-clean scent of her son, inundating the duvet and pillow, every wrinkle in the dinosaur sheets. If she had to choose something especially dear to her son — besides the magic of WiFi — it was a patched green triceratops, lumpy from displaced stuffing and forcibly put in the laundry after some struggle, on numerous occasions, too many to count. Its usual place was the crook of Tommy’s arm, as regular as clockwork, and Felicity felt a brief stir of panic that it had gone.

“It’s not here,” she muttered, searching in the crack between the frame and the wall. “I can’t find it.”

Oliver had apparently latched onto the same thought. “He never goes to sleep without it,” he said, checking behind the pillows. “Raisa —”

“I check laundry, but I just washed his toy last week,” she said, already moving towards the stairs.

“Is there anything else?” Constantine asked, not unkindly, even if they looked like complete morons, almost going to pieces at a stuffed animal being missing from their son’s bed. “I was particularly fond of a broken flashlight back in my hellion days.”

“Um,” Felicity said, her mind racing through the possibilities. There were still some favorites in his drawers, scattered around his room, but the missing dinosaur disconcerted her more than she could say.

“His sweatshirt — the green one,” Oliver prompted, opening dresser drawers. “He wanted to wear it around all summer.”

“Right.” Felicity tucked her hair behind her ears nervously, watching as Oliver found a reason to refold the already folded sweatshirt. There was a thumb-sized hole in the cuff and the design — Green Arrow-related, as a joke that didn’t seem funny anymore — had faded practically to nothing.

“How long will it take?” Oliver asked.

“The spirit is a fickle thing, especially a child’s,” Constantine said, surprisingly somber, even with an old sweatshirt in his hands. “If it were a full-fledged adult I was seeking, it might take me an hour, maybe two. A child on the other hand, a child is not fully formed, and the spirit is more fragile and harder to grasp than incense smoke. I won’t lie to you — the meditation could take hours…or days. But I’ll do all I can to find your boy, I promise you that.”

Felicity thought he looked preoccupied by something else, something that made him doubtful. Magic wasn’t necessarily her lingo, Harry Potter obsessions aside. This was _real_ magic, and the words might as well have been Pig Latin to her. “Could the Shade…hide Tommy? Make it harder for you to find him?”

Constantine looked up from his musing. “If it _is_ the darkness who snatched your boy. I may be a trickster and a drunk, but I know my wards. From the moment this… _Shade_ first appeared in our sights, I put up protection spells around the Watchtower, to alert me against dark magic.”

“Why do I sense bad news tacked onto that?” she said.

“None of those spells were triggered,” Constantine answered. “Even if my magic wasn’t strong enough to stop the bloody bastard, the broken wards should have drained me. I didn’t feel a bloody thing.”

“So you’re saying it wasn’t the Shade.”

Constantine looked baldly at them, honest to a fault. “I’m saying that we have more problems to worry about than a shadow. Whoever took your boy — he did it without a trace of magic.”

_Square one._

* * *

 

“Don’t shoot,” Felicity said, holding up her hands in response to her stepdad sitting in the bedroom chair, facing the door with his police-issued handgun resting on a knee. “Just us.”

Quentin’s smile looked more like a grimace (she knew the feeling). “Any leads?”

Oliver shook his head. “Working on it. You two should get some rest,” he said, glancing towards Donna, who was fast asleep in a protective bearhug pose around her granddaughter, bright coral party dress and all.

“Appreciate the gesture, but…” Quentin glowered at the empty fireplace. “I don’t think any of us’ll be getting any sleep until Tommy’s home safe.”

Felicity climbed onto their bed and leaned over her mother. Judging from the empty cups of hot cocoa and crumpled Kleenexes on the nightstand, she guessed that Hazel’s face wasn’t the only tear-streaked one in the room. “Mom,” she said, gently shaking her awake. “ _Mom_.”

Donna gradually stirred, a process that involved puffing out strands of blonde-highlighted hair from her mouth and looking around the room in bleary confusion. “I had a dream about fighting a grizzly bear,” she mumbled. “It tried to take Hazelnut, and I had to throw all my _salmon_ at it to make it go away.”

Dire circumstances aside, Felicity almost found the quasi-nightmare funny. “Oliver and I can take over here. Why don’t you and Quentin take the rest of the night off?”

Donna sat up, careful not to wake Hazel, but instead of reaching for the discarded heels by the bed, she held out her arms to Felicity and her face seemed to _collapse_ in genuine distress.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” she cooed. “I left my grand-babies all alone and a bad man came and took them! I should be fired! _You_ should fire me — I’m the worst Nana in the history of _ever_ , and that includes whoever grandmother-ed that girl who used to pull on your hair in preschool. I’m the worst grand-whatever, and I’m so — so — _sorry_ about everything. It’s all my fault!”

That was how Felicity found herself clamped in the world’s most distraught (and _wet_ ) hug, trying to reassure her mother about the liability situation despite having A) _zero_ energy and B) zip expectations whatsoever that Donna Smoak of all people would go full-Oliver self-blame-spiral on her.

Oliver had a somewhat dazed look not unlike her own, standing by the chair as an observer in this burgeoning family drama.

“Everyone’s packing on the blame tonight,” Quentin said, patting Oliver heavily on the arm. “I’m sorry too — Police Commissioner, and I let this bastard walk straight out from under my nose. The worst part is — I can’t even tell anyone at the SCPD because this…this _psychopath_ could hurt my grandson.”

Donna let out another wail at that, and Felicity hiccoughed from the extra air being squeezed out of her lungs.

“The blame’s not on either of you,” Oliver said. “You both have done everything you can in the circumstances.”

“Not damn near enough,” Quentin insisted. “Not damn near enough.”

Donna nodded frantically, still in the middle of strangling her daughter with a hug.

“ _Mo-om_ ,” Felicity croaked, patting her arm with some force. “Can’t…breathe.”

Cue gasp of horror. “I can’t do anything right!”

Thank frack for Hazel — who had been mostly asleep at the center of the throttling hug — because she showed signs of being disturbed in her sleep, her damp face creasing at the raised decibel of the adults’ discussion.

“I think we all need to calm down,” Oliver said evenly. “The most important thing right now is the children, and Hazel needs us.”

Donna half-released Felicity from the stranglehold, a hand clapped securely over her mouth like she was a leaky gas canister. She slid carefully off the bed — as gingerly as a member of the bomb squad — and gave Felicity a kiss on the forehead.

“Goodnight, baby girl,” she whispered.

Oliver passed Donna the towering shoes and gave Quentin a nod. “Goodnight,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

Alone — well, mostly alone — at last. The mattress springs creaked when Oliver finally lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. Hazel was curled up in the center of it all, and they both silently orientated themselves around their daughter, holding her between them like they could shield her from anything and everything.

Felicity stroked the hair back from her flushed face. _Too little, too late_ , she thought bitterly, and started when Hazel’s eyes opened wide.

“Is Tommy gone?” she croaked, before either of her parents could say a word.

The one, awful pause was worse than any answer they could give, and Felicity knew it.

“We’re doing everything we can to get him back,” Oliver reassured her, even though Felicity could see the cracks in his composure.

Hazel bit her lip. “But he’s gone.”

Felicity tried again. “We’ll — we’ll get him back, sweetheart. Don’t worry.”

The corners of her eyes began to slant downwards, and she sucked in a noisy gasp of air. “Is it my fault?”

“No, Hazel. _No_.” Oliver laid the back of his hand against her cheek like he did whenever she had a fever. “It’s not your fault.”

Tears were already rolling silently — one after the other — down her face, darkening Felicity’s sleeve. “Is,” she cried. “ _Is_.”

“Shh,” Oliver breathed, trying to soothe her. “Why would it be your fault, sweetheart?”

Hazel was hunched up beneath the covers, her fists over her eyes, bawling the incoherent answer into Felicity’s stomach. It took them both the longest time to understand what she was saying, until they finally did.

She’d almost cried herself to sleep before Felicity managed to get her lying on her back, red-faced and hiccuping with distress while Oliver tried to calm her.

“Then why didn’t they take me?” she whispered, as a tear wound its way silently down the side of her face and vanished into her hair.

Neither of them seemed capable of breathing normally until Hazel had gone to sleep, which she did eventually, albeit fighting it to the absolute last second, like she could wrestle sleep away with her bare hands.

The silence seemed to thicken and congeal as the seconds passed, and Felicity found herself staring at the gold dress she’d worn that evening, hanging on the back of the vanity chair from when she’d hurriedly changed out of it. She could almost see Tommy and Hazel squeezing onto either side of the bench with her, jostling for room. She almost heard their laughter, Oliver’s soothing voice answering questions, and remembered the bright — incandescent — faith that nothing, _nothing_ could have gone wrong for the Queens that night.

“Please say something,” Oliver said at last, in a voice about two pitches lower and twice as hoarse as it should have been.

The beading on the dress seemed to reflect the light back into her eyes, until Felicity felt them water and sting, and she couldn’t look at it — or anything — anymore. Hazel was partly in her lap, the quilts gathered around her like she was cold, even on a late summer evening, hair tangled around her face and plastered to the places where tears had dried.

Something silent and invisible splintered inside of Felicity for the last time, and she hunched forward with her hands clapped over her mouth, stifling the sound that resulted from the feeling of having her insides twisted around with a red-hot vengeance.

_Theytookhimtheytookhimtheytookhim_ —

Oliver’s arms were around her now, and she didn’t want them to be — not yet — because she wanted to hit something, she wanted to lash out at the _bastards_ who did this, she wanted to burn them and everything they stood for and she wanted to watch as it all turned to ash.

It was a silent struggle between two people who couldn’t find the words, a fight to stay sane in a situation that _demanded_ insanity. Felicity’s head dug painfully against Oliver’s collarbone, a silent scream muffled in the folds of his shirt. Once — twice — again — her fists thudded against his chest because she wanted him to let her go, but he held her close anyway because some dark part of himself believed it was all his fault and he deserved it.

They fought each other in their own way, working their way to exhaustion in an utterly pointless battle, until Felicity was out of breath and seeing double, her coiled hands numb from the repeated impact of hitting muscle and bone. Oliver’s breath shook against her temple, and she felt a surge of remorse, guilt, and understanding. They were in the same boat, the same team — Oliver and Felicity — and she curled her hands, trembling, cold, around his face.

She couldn’t see anymore, so she closed her eyes and let instinct tell her where to go.

His face was wet — from her tears or his, she didn’t know — and he caught his breath when their lips brushed. The kiss tasted of salt, fearful futures neither of them wanted to contemplate, and a measure of things they wanted to say to each other.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, as the heaviness of sleep began to carry her into the dark.

She swore she heard him whisper it too, but she was already gone.

* * *

It had to be almost dawn. Oliver was on his side, watching the inky blue sky shift incrementally towards morning. Hazel huffed quietly in her sleep, unaware of the world around her — all the better for it, given the way things had gone lately.

“Still no demands,” she said, and he looked around, not realizing that she’d been awake for the whole time. “I keep waiting for the landline to ring, until I remember that everyone has cell phones now.”

“Hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet,” Oliver said, without needing to glance at the clock. He knew the time down to the minute, if not the second.

Felicity nodded, and he had a feeling that she knew it down to the minute too.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, and their eyes met again.

“About what?” he asked.

She breathed out, very slowly. “What we could have done…differently.”

It was a relief — one that caught him unawares — to hear Felicity sounding like herself again. In the stark hours before the dawn, it was as though they’d reached a point of clarity, the truth sinking in for what it was.

Oliver shifted a little closer, tucking a stray curl back from her face. “I’m all ears,” he answered.

“We knew what we signed up for, when we started the Justice League. We thought that after HIVE went down, things would be safe. _Safer_ ,” she corrected herself. “I guess we wanted to believe living in the light of day was going to be as easy as we made it.”

“We can’t take back what we’ve done. The whole city already knows about us.”

“I’m not suggesting we move to Bali, Oliver,” she said flatly. “Though living in the tropics does have its perks.”

They both smiled, if only a little.

“When I think about staying in the shadows — not telling the world who we were — sometimes I think it might have been easier. Maybe Tommy wouldn’t have been taken. But we can’t say for sure. We can _never_ say for sure. Which is why…” she inhaled deeply. “Which is why I’m done thinking about _what ifs_. Because I don’t regret a single thing about the way my life is right now.”

“Felicity…”

“The Oliver Queen who wanted to stay in the shadows, the Oliver Queen who thought he was going to die alone in the Foundry…that Oliver wouldn’t have married me, or given me two beautiful children, who I love so much that it _hurts_. He wouldn’t have become a beacon of hope as the Green Arrow, or run for Mayor to make the city a better place. Tommy might have been safer if we’d kept hiding who we were, but I know that a life — _our_ life — in the light is better than being in the darkness, all secrets and lies. That’s not living, and I’m done trying to wrap my head around the possibility that maybe we should have done things differently.”

She reached around their sleeping daughter and took his open hand, running her thumb across the smooth metal band of his wedding ring. “As of right now — this twenty-five-thousandth-second and counting— we have a job to do. Someone has Thomas Andrew Queen, and we are going to get him back, because that is what we do. That is who we are. We have _always_ fought hard for family and friends, the only difference now is that we’re still learning how to do it in the sun. Magic-mojo or no magic-mojo, Shade man or someone else, we will find them, and we will stop them. Are you with me, Mr. Green Arrow?”

Oliver knew Felicity too well to think that the anger had burned itself out, because it wouldn’t have, not so easily. But he recognized the determination behind her eyes, and the singular resolution to fight in her voice.

Someone had once told him that Felicity had celestial steel flowing in her veins, and never had that observation been truer than it was at that very moment.

“How did you get to be so strong?” he wondered aloud, and was rewarded with the warmth of the first genuine smile he’d seen from Felicity since the crisis.

“I think…I took my lead from you,” she said, and he kissed the back of her hand in answer.

Early morning was never a silent thing, not with the constant motion of the wind through the leaves, and the tiny shifts and scratches of animals in the wild, but Oliver went still at a noise out of place.

Felicity was visibly unnerved at his silence. “What is it?”

“Downstairs,” he said.

Felicity started to move, but he stopped her with a hand on her knee. “Stay with Hazel,” he said. “Lock the door after me.”

If Felicity wanted to follow him out of curiosity, the thought of leaving Hazel by herself was enough to make her stay put. Oliver made sure the bedroom was secured behind him before he turned towards the source of the noise.

The mansion was aged and set in its ways, but a childhood in and out of its walls meant that he knew how to make his way down the old staircase without a sound. He was barefoot and without a weapon, but somehow he knew there was no threat to him.

It was a burgeoning suspicion, planted the second he’d thought of the Pied Piper from the old story, luring children away without a struggle. The doubt only grew when he identified the source of the noise, the front doors — which had been locked tight for the evening — banging open and shut from the gusts of an impending storm.

Dead leaves (already they were browning in anticipation of fall) curled across the carpet in the main foyer, skittering away into the shadows as though they were spiders that shied away from human touch. The rest crunched beneath his bare feet like fragile bones, fragments into fragments again.

At first, the murky half-light of the dawn made it hard to see — until Oliver stood in the doorway, looking in from the outside.

Fallen leaves obscured the strokes of dark paint (at least he hoped it was), but gradually they aligned themselves into words, scored into the carpet in spiked letters. As the message slowly became clear to him, Oliver knew he wasn’t wrong.

_THE ONES YOU LOVE_

_DISTRACTIONS_

It was a game, and it had only just begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably not what you thought I was going to do, was it? :)


	19. Gaining Steam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Advance warning, I play around with some character viewpoints I haven't used before, like ever. Pretty fun, must say.  
> There's also a lot of parallel stuff going on in these chapters. I tried my best.

Sara stirred from a sleepy nest of blankets and unnecessary pillows, wondering if she’d imagined the noise. With rugged crags and snowy glaciers sweeping the Tibetan mountainscape beneath the monastery, they were more likely to hear sounds of the previous century than anything remotely city-related. The clang of early-morning sparring (blades non-optional) and archery practice, maybe the odd horse pulling a rattling cart across cobbled streets — no blaring cars and roaring trains.

Peace and quiet, in the heart of a sky-piercing glacier.

The noise (if she hadn’t imagined it) didn’t restart, and Sara relaxed again, an arm behind her head, eyes fixed on the red canopy that flickered with the glow of unextinguished candles.

It’d been a while since she’d stopped calling Starling City _home_. Even longer since she’d thought of leaving everything behind, slipping from a haunted underground fortress like a thief in the night.

The thought made her smile, and she turned her head to the side, facing the dark horse who’d won over reliable hot water and wireless internet. Nyssa slept on her stomach, curled possessively over two or three pillows, along with Sara’s right arm.

Playing with a curl of Nyssa’s black hair, she contemplated an early wakeup call beside the (slim) prospect of grumpiness. Just as she was deciding what to do, the floorboards began to rattle in the same noise that had woken her to begin with.

 _Phone_.

“Are you going to ignore it again?” Nyssa said abruptly, all without cracking an eye.

Sara jerked upright. “Because I was _sleeping_ ,” she answered, clambering over her wife in search of the vibrating phone. “Something you clearly weren’t doing. Why didn’t you answer?”

Nyssa yawned with the languid disinterest of a cat and rolled onto her back. She arched an eyebrow at their position — Sara’s legs on either side of her chest, both in varying stages of undress — even though the former had contorted to grope underneath the bed.

“I make it my policy to ignore the infernal device,” she said, tracing patterns on Sara’s bare knee. “It sings _most_ unpleasantly.”

“ _You_ have one,” Sara pointed out.

Nyssa’s tapered fingers were already meandering north, a sign that she’d realigned her priorities mid-discussion. “A trifling necessity for when a certain golden bird flies from home, but otherwise — I see no reason to leave my bed for it.”

Sara rolled her eyes and came back up with her phone. A week since her last call to her dad had been enough inactivity for a thin layer of dust to coat the screen, and she impatiently brushed it clean to see who was calling again.

A frown. “Ollie?” she said, the phone to her ear. “What’s going on?”

She could hear him breathing, but it seemed like an eternity before he actually spoke. “Sara — I’m sorry — I — I know the time — I wouldn’t have called unless it was important.”

Whether he knew it or not (and since it was Oliver, he probably didn’t), the voice on the other end was hoarse with exhaustion, scraped raw with nerves, and Sara’s instincts began to thrum with danger. Oliver was more transparent than he realized — especially to his nearest and dearest — and she could still see right through him, even thousands of miles away. She’d heard him in a rage, the cold anger that came from wanting to murder, and she’d heard him grieving, for someone who’d never come home.

This was a median between two unhappy extremes, enough to send a cold slick of foreboding down her spine.

“It’s okay — Ollie, it’s okay,” she said, like she was making a promise. “Talk to me.”

Nyssa had gone still, sensing the elemental shift in mood. Sara brushed her hair behind her ear and straightened up, waiting for one of her closest friends to tell her what she already knew — something was wrong.

She just didn’t know what.

“It’s Tommy,” Oliver said, and she closed her eyes. “He’s been taken.”

Sara swore quietly and at length, using the choicest Arabic vocabulary Nyssa had taught her, thinking of Oliver, Felicity, and the sweet six-year-old boy caught in the crosshairs. “I’ll be in Starling by tomorrow. Whatever you need, I —”

“Not Starling.” Suddenly.

“We need you here, but I need you to do something first.” Oliver paused, as though he’d winced, knowing what he was about to ask. “Somewhere.”

Sara lifted her head and met Nyssa’s questioning gaze. “Tell me,” she repeated, and this time it was a promise she meant to keep.

* * *

Oliver glanced at his phone again, even though he’d called Sara just hours before, and the repertoire of skills under the League of Shadows didn’t extend to the mystic arts of teleportation (despite what Cisco might want to believe).  
Even if she’d left immediately, her destination — and the truth of his suspicions — was still hours away.

The door shook from someone knocking with their fist, and Oliver immediately reached for it. “You look like hell,” he said, upon opening the door.

Roy looked right back at him, shoulders stiff with fatigue and something else. “So do you.”

For everyone in the team, it was the kind of greeting that had become a language of its own. An admission that they were tired, exhausted even, but had no inclination — or _programming_ , in Felicity’s words — to stop what they were doing until the job was done. It was a tradition as time-honored as battlefield scars and off-duty drinks in the Watchtower. They’d all watch out for each other, ready to push back if one of them threatened to tip over the precipice, but until that crucial breaking point — there was a tacit understanding, a kind of solemn trust, that they would keep going, together.

Because they had to, but more importantly — because they _wanted_ to.

Oliver stepped aside to let Roy into the mansion, and caught a whiff of metal and saltwater off his damp clothes. “Where have you been?” he asked, his tone curious rather than accusatory.

Roy scrutinized his shoes, followed by a quick scan of his surroundings, as though making sure Raisa — famously austere about mud and floors — was nowhere in sight. “Followed some leads down to the docks,” he answered. “I ended up busting some lowlifes in the trafficking business, but I didn’t find Tommy.

A beat. “You don’t look surprised.”

There was a question behind his words, tentative and expecting the worst. Oliver shook his head slightly. “We have something,” he said, and Roy’s eyes traveled past his shoulder.

The team had already gathered, Diggle, Thea and Felicity all working in their respective strengths. Despite the nature of their contributions, the focal point of the unfinished circle — intentionally or otherwise — was the message slashed into the carpet with nothing short of viciousness.

“ _Roy_ ,” Thea said immediately, unfolding her slender legs from where they’d been crossed beneath a laptop.

Roy moved towards her and she reached up to hug him. They stayed that way, a kiss into her ruffled hair, her cheek pressed to his in a moment of unguarded intimacy. She kept a hand on his chest even when they pulled apart. “You okay?” she asked, checking his knuckles for bruises she already knew were there.

He nodded, tugging gently on her ear in a ghost of their usual greeting. “Sorry I’m late.” He looked across the circle at his friends. “Any progress?”

Having shunned the couch and coffee table the others were using, Felicity was flanked by two laptops and playing host to an even larger one in her lap, a multitude of pens and fragile drafting tablets surrounding her temporary workspace like debris in the middle of a hurricane. “Besides Raisa establishing that the graffiti _will_ stain nineteenth century carpet? Not much,” she said, trying to fit a pen behind her ear, seemingly oblivious to the one already occupying the spot. “Hun—” (barely looking up) “—use the polarized one.”

Oliver paused, on his knees in front of the stained rug, in the middle of a mechanical reassembly of the handheld forensic scanner. Working together for as long as they had meant that everyone had learnt more than they’d ever expected to know about certain things, but forensics would always be more Barry’s specialty (or Bruce’s) than his. It didn’t stop Roy from rifling briefly around the kit to find the light source Oliver was meant to be using.

“Should I ask?” Roy said, after Oliver murmured his thanks. “About… _that_.”

“It’s not blood,” Oliver answered, chafing his fingertips together like he’d just come away from examining the evidence. “They wanted to leave a message.”

The scanner came on with a gradual blue glow, humming at a low electric frequency while Oliver glided it across the swathe of carpet. Sporadic glances at the words, the jagged strokes drawing focus with some kind of macabre fascination, and all the cat-and-mouse implications they entailed. Prior experience had already established the futility of trying to beat answers out of the city’s lowlifes, as momentarily satisfying as it would have felt. Oliver clenched his fists, choosing instead to hold his shoulders rigid, rather than reveal how badly he needed to hit something.

“Well, the Shade can talk all it wants,” Felicity said, more sharply edged than her usual self. “It’ll have plenty of alone time in the containment cell we’re putting together.”

Diggle and Oliver exchanged silent looks over Felicity’s head, the latter absorbed with an online symposium between the brightest minds in the team. Three screens and an infinite number of blueprints, accompanied by enough diagrams and indecipherable code to make Oliver’s head spin.

The tacit understanding had never been harder to keep up, especially with how _exhausted_ he knew Felicity had to be. But he knew the argument cut both ways. One of them taking a break meant the other one would have to, and neither of them were strong enough to stop.

The merit of having a not-dissimilar example of happily married friends to look up to: the more experienced of the two was always ready with well-timed hints and advice. This time, Diggle shook his head slightly and covered the gesture by rubbing at his eyes. Tired, like everyone else’s.

“I don’t know if Curtis or Cisco can do anything about this down at the lab, because I’ve been through the CCTV footage at least twenty times,” he said. “But the only thing I’m seeing is a major internal security overhaul in the making.”

Before Diggle could budge from his seat, Thea stuck her arm out, coffeepot attached. “Same,” she said distractedly, scrolling one-handedly on her computer. “Well — paparazzi photos from last night — not security cameras. Too many celebrity nip-slips, not enough sketchy-kidnapper.”

Roy looked cheated. “I thought we agreed that I’d give up the DIY shows if you cut down on the gossip magazines.”

Thea brushed him off with a wave of her hand in the vein of _details, details_. “Occupational hazard. It’s my job to keep an eye on the clients, and having a few paparazzo friends is the best kind of early warning system for campaign management.”

Felicity laughed without humor. “No offence, but I’m still gonna need a _little_ more to not feel like we’re grasping at straws,” she said, switching over to another laptop.

Oliver was inclined to agree, especially with his stance on celebrity-related journalism. “Speedy, you’re not going to recycle what you pitched mom when she tried to throw out your tabloid magazines, are you?”

The glare Thea shot him was nearly murderous. “I missed the Blannon wedding issue because of that,” she growled. “And no, I have a point with this. I’m assuming everyone remembers the number of paparazzi stalking the gala last night? If I know tabloid fever, and _be-lieve_ me I do, the bloggers love _nothing_ more than to speculate about who’s who underneath the masks. There’s about ten polls right now on the Flash’s secret identity — not even close, BTW — and the pictures are still coming in. If someone sketchy snuck in and out of the venue, there’s a pretty good chance they’re somewhere in these photos.”

There was a momentary awed pause.

“Who’s number one in the Flash poll?” Roy asked curiously, over the steady buzz of the scanner. “Anyone we know?”

“Hartley Rathaway,” Thea answered, rolling her eyes. “Guess who’s right on his tail? Lex Luthor. Geez. Not _every_ superhero is a secret billionaire.”

“Oliver Queen, Ray Palmer, Bruce Wayne…” Felicity recited, without missing a beat on her bullet-speed typing.

“ _Fine_ , they have a point.”

Oliver gently peeled the film away from the carpet and drew it taut across a blank page. Diggle took it from him with a low whistle. “That’s a good one,” he remarked, sliding it through the scanner. “Nice work, Candidate Queen. You should add forensic analysis to your resume.”

“I just do the grunt work,” he answered, his focus directed at the screen.

“What kind of shadow leaves footprints all over the carpet?” Thea inquired, peering over her brother’s shoulder.

Oliver didn’t respond, because his suspicions, already triggered since he’d discovered the taunting message slashed into the floor, weren't soothed in the slightest by the newest piece of evidence. He’d seen his fair share of prints — in blood, mud, or dust — to recognize a combat boot, and as the while light swept up and down the glass, he was suddenly glad that Sara was on her way.

Glad, but almost dreading what she’d find.

His phone buzzed without warning, and Oliver tore his gaze away to answer the call.

_Constantine._

The sound seemed to have shattered Felicity’s single-minded focus on her work. She was utterly still, her face frozen with emotions too powerful to let free.

Oliver almost couldn’t bear to look her in the eye, but he did. “John,” he said shortly. “Do you have something?”

“I have something,” said Constantine. “Oliver, your boy — he’s alive.”

“Where?”

“Blüdhaven.”

The name barely even registered, a hollow noise somewhere in the fog. All he heard was _alive_ — and that was what stirred him.

“Then we need to move, _now_.” Oliver turned to the others. “Suit up.”

* * *

“Lockdown Light Box Test Run 45,” Cisco said, rooting around the mass of wires for the one he wanted. “C’mon, baby. Don’t make me annihilate you with a sledgehammer.”

“Going that well, huh?” Barry said, holding a paper bag of burritos and a vibe that read _sympathy_ in the face of epic-fail inventing.

Right beside him, Caitlin stood in the entranceway to the pipeline, wearing the same expression as his favorite _abuela_ when she’d found him downstairs in the middle of the night, recalibrating the crappy _only-gets-kiddie-programming_ cable box so he could watch HBO. “ _Cisco_ ,” she said. “We sent you home to get some sleep. How’d you get back in?”

Even at his advanced age (content redacted), Cisco couldn’t _quite_ resist putting his fingertips together and doing the Yoda voice. “Doorways many are, determined I am. _Hmm_.”

Barry raised his eyebrows, but Caitlin tipped her head to the side, hand on her hip, completely cool (pun intended) to let the skepticism levels hit _Awkward_.

“The pipeline has a back door,” he sighed. “Why does no one ever feel my _Star Wars_ quotes?”

Four months pregnant with a Snowstorm baby was still pretty far off from being manatee size, but Cisco’s brain was primitively hardwired to think _waddle_ instead of _float_ , so he had to give himself a mental pinch when Caitlin shuffled — no, poor choice of words, he’d trained himself for this — _glided_ over to where he was working. Better. “Felicity and I worked out the optimal light emission for the wall panels,” she said, forking over a pair of pliers before he’d even asked for it. “More blue light creates a truer white.”

“ _Great_ ,” he said, twisting the wires a teensy bit harder than he needed to. “Now if only the overlords of engineering would accept my blood sacrifice, we could get Operation _Lights Out_ up and running.”

“But in this context, lights out is _bad_ ,” Barry pointed out, very reasonably.

“Right.” Cisco snapped his fingers. “Rookie mistake. Operation _Light ‘Em Up_ it is.”

Judging from the not-subtle-at-all silence, his friends were checking out the half-finished containment cell built into the pipeline, his go-to inventing space beneath the Justice League home base in Central City. It was like having his own basement, but better, because there were automatic fire extinguishers and no nosy neighbors (well, maybe Connor).

With the help of a three-way uplink between Curtis and Felicity and himself, they’d managed to piece together the design, which left working out the kinks. Unactivated, the walls were as glassy as two-way mirrors, which A) looked _very_ cool, and B) worked great for minimizing shadows.

And that was before the blinding darkness-begone science mojo came into play. If only he could get the circuitry to stop overloading (details).

In all fairness, the general debris must have been the perfect camouflage, because Caitlin only just spotted the silent friend perched on a precarious stack of discarded prototype backing panels. “I hope your blood rituals didn’t get on this guy,” she said, thumbing a faded patch between the stuffed triceratops horns. “How’d you get a hold of him, anyway?”

Cisco managed to poke himself on the thumb, and he sucked at the impromptu injection site to stop the bleeding. “Connor lifted it from Tommy’s room when he was supposed to be in the shower. Between you and me, for a guy who looks like he should be shirtless at a mall, that kid’s _scary-good_ at activities in the moral gray area.”

Barry lifted his shoulders. “I mean, his mom did manage to be Captain of the Russian mob for a while.”

“Mind control.”

“His dad survived five years on a deserted island, the Bratva _and_ the League of Assassins.”

“I…do _not_ have a good explanation for that one,” he conceded, and let his hands drop into his lap, dangerously unfinished wire and all. “Look, guys — I know we’ve had this conversation before — but did we do something bad?”

He considered it a mark of best-friendship that neither of them asked for more details.

Caitlin’s nervous tic was twisting her wedding ring, and the diamond snowflake ( _you’re welcome for the bling advice, Mr Ronnie-Now-Married-Raymond_ ) made two full rotations before she spoke.

“We haven’t lied to anyone,” she said diplomatically. “Which I _know_ is what everyone says when they’re lying, but we haven’t, not —”

“—not technically,” Cisco finished for her. “Which — _funny coincidence_ — is the preferred vocabulary for liars with their pants on fire. I mean, with everything that’s going on…it just feels like Oliver deserves to know. Connor’s his son too, and I’m not sure how long my all-purpose jeans can take the hellfire scorching at my butt.”

Almost in sync, the two of them turned towards Barry — because a silent Bartholomew Henry Allen was just about as weird as a non-punny Cisco. Like evil-doppleganger-weird.

 _Gah_.

Half-shadow, arms folded and frowny-forehead was _not_ a good look for his bestie. Standing between Caitlin and Cisco, the mirrored walls of the unfinished cage captured the three of them in never-ending shadows of shadows, stretching further and further back into a dark infinity.

Which wasn’t dramatic, like _at all_.

“I told you both,” he began. “Whatever happened after that — it was going to be on me. It still is. Everything we’ve done since then, it’s because _I_ asked you to. If there’s going to be any blame, neither of you deserve any of it.”

Caitlin leaned forward. “We aren’t a jury, Barry,” she said gently, chafing his arm. “We made a choice when we agreed to help. The three of us know, better than _anyone_ , what it means when a secret isn’t ours to tell.”

Barry gripped her hand, but he still looked about twenty-thousand notches shy of convinced. “That’s what I told myself at the start. It made sense — when Oliver wasn’t talking to me because of Kaznia. But last night, when I said it to him, right to his face…I don’t know, I really don’t. It feels like I missed my only chance to come clean without —”

“—what, starting some kind of civil war?” Cisco said, strangely and _very inappropriately_ fascinated by the idea. “C’mon, man. That’s science-fiction, even for us, and before you say it, I _am_ aware of how new-level-of-ironic that is, especially since I’m working on a light-cage to capture a walking shadow.”

“And we’re very proud of you for not speculating who would win,” Caitlin added, with a small smile. “But, in all seriousness —”

She held out her hand, and Cisco dropped the unfinished wiring (again) so that she could round out the semi-prayer circle.

“We decided not to make a choice for Connor, and the bottom line is: we protect him, whatever it takes. That’s what I have on my conscience,” she said firmly, looking from one to the other. “It’s the job we signed on to do.”

Barry nodded slowly, and after a beat, Cisco did too. “ _Damn_ , mama bear. You almost looked dangerous there. Remind me not to mess with your salmon.”

The last part coincided almost _perfectly_ with the door-whoosh, admitting a fourth person into the lab space. “Is that a euphemism?” Connor said, wrinkling his perfectly straight nose.

“We’re channelling,” Cisco said, just realizing how sweaty his fingers were. “It’s a _chi_ thing, _bagua_ , _zen_ …all that. Jazz.”

“How’re you doing?” Barry asked. “Did you sleep?”

Connor scratched the back of his head, sidestepping the question. “My mom almost slapped an ankle monitor on me when I said I wanted to head down to the lab. Any luck with the vibing?” he asked.

Cisco looked up from the Jackson Pollock-ish circuit board he was attempting to fix. “I’ve been trying to get a vibe off the thing all night, but I’m pretty sure I just upped my _Creepy_ index by having a stare-off with a kid’s toy. BTW, this is where you say _no you’re not, Cisco, you’re completely normal and functional._ ”

“You’re completely functional, Cisco,” Caitlin promised, twitching the triceratops arms at him. “Maybe don’t whip your hair so much when you dance.”

Cisco gave a theatrical gasp, reaching for the controls in the meantime. “Okay, moment of truth. A lot of genius went into this baby.” He wiggled his thumb over the key. “Three, two, _one_ —”

The panels went solar in one _glorious_ moment of hallelujah, until —

A mechanical whine, an electric crackle of protest, and the lights blinked off, leaving all of them in complete darkness.

“Yeah, that’s about right,” he said.

The emergency lights clicked on, and Cisco winced under the flood of stark yellow. “So that’s…forty-five failed tests. Guess who wants to die right about now? Hint — he’s got two thumbs and _awesome_ dance moves.”

It was impossible to miss the disappointment on Connor’s face (not just from the failed test run), which made Cisco feel about twenty times worse. Worse than coming out of the _Star Wars_ prequels. Worse than finding out that the _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ reunion show wasn’t coming back for another season —

“Sorry,” he said, his hands slumped in his lap. “My powers don’t really run on demand — I’m still working out what triggers them.”

Connor looked startled, and then guilty. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…”

Barry put a hand on his shoulder, while Caitlin offered him his brother’s stuffed dinosaur. “We know. We’re doing what we can, Connor. So are you.”

He took the toy without speaking, tugging aimlessly on the arms like it was habit. Cisco opened his mouth to say something — probably apologize again — when he felt it.

The _pull_.

Vibing didn’t happen on command, but Cisco knew it well enough to recognize the sudden rush of weightlessness that came before a vision, like walking down a flight of stairs and missing a step, like wading through dark water and sinking into unexpected depths.

_It’s happening._

“Connor,” he said, in a voice that sounded like it was coming through a mirror. “The toy. Throw it to me. Now.”

Weirdness and downright wacky — the boy had seen in spades, so Cisco didn’t have to ask twice. Connor braced himself and threw.

It was him and _not_ -him, the Cisco who reached out with robotic un-klutziness to intercept the catch. The toy soared in a downward arc, falling too slow to be happening in real-time. He saw it all happen as if he was six feet away from his body, but when the toy — Tommy’s favorite toy — made contact with his skin, he felt a shock as pure as electricity surge through his veins, and it snapped him back into his body again.

His eyes were wide, but he wasn’t seeing.

Not really.

* * *

_Darkness._

Sort of.

Water — _why always water?_ — dripping slowly into a puddle.

God, he hoped it was just water.

Cisco felt rope dig into his wrists, his pulse racing in his ears like the wings of a frantic bird.

A slow, disembodied voice — machine-like — too soft to hear at first. His chest burned with frustration as he tried to make out the words, like a kid learning his first letters.

_Ra-ke H…ayton? L…La-ke Hay-ven._

_Lake…Haven._

_What the actual frack was Lake Haven?_

With a snap, his eyes unglued themselves and he got his first good look at the place. Mirrors, so grimy and distorted that it took him the longest time to realize that he was staring at his own face.

_Not his face._

He sucked in his breath — a loud explosive rasp — at the sight of Tommy’s pale face, scratched on the chin, hair plastered to his forehead with cold sweat, eyes as wide and dark as the mirrors surrounding him on all sides.

_You’re alive. You’re okay._

As if the vision could sense his relief, he heard the slow rasp of something sharp, dragging slowly — tauntingly — across the ground.

Tommy — Cisco too — hunched forward with his eyes closed, and somehow he knew his hands were over his ears.

“ _They’re coming_ ,” he whispered. “ _They’re coming to find me_.”

Cisco thought it was impossible to hate his powers more than he did then.

He was _so_ wrong, because he heard the scuffle of grit being crushed beneath a boot, like whoever had Tommy was crouched by him. A heavy hand smoothed the front of his head, a mocking gesture meant to do the exact opposite of comfort.

“Counting on it, kid.”

* * *

 

The not-dream shattered in a yell and cold sweat, and Cisco realized he was on the floor.

“He’s alive,” he said shakily. “Tommy’s alive. Lake — Lake Haven. What’s Lake Haven?”

Connor was already Googling, Barry looking over his shoulder. Caitlin rubbed Cisco’s back, simultaneously checking him for fever, but he needed to know, croaking “ _Lake Haven_ ,” like his own version of _Redrum_.

Connor’s head shot up. “It’s in Blüdhaven,” he said. “Tommy’s in Blüdhaven.”

Barry was already moving. “We’re on our way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on 4x18 (Super late, I know, but eh):   
>  \- If anything, one of the two big reasons I'm glad this episode exists is because it demonstrates that without Felicity, this show is completely effing unwatchable. I don't remember being on Tumblr or texting so much during an episode ever, and that includes the one about the Canaries and Vertigo. Good GOD the grind was so real.  
> \- Big reason #2: let's all have a moment of silence (two weeks late) for a character the writers probably intended to mean more than she actually did. Like really. Let's all just mourn the storylines she could have had, if the writers hadn't thrown that bizarro BC transformation story into S3. Like really, how hard would it have been for Laurel to get trained by Sara? Nope, they just fastforwarded through the inconsistency and BAM. Now this. I know I've been practically gleeful at the prospect of her death, but I've watched a lot of Laurel tribute videos since then and I have to say it's more of a waste than anything else. Killing her off was inevitable, but they didn't have to let it reach this point where the only purpose her character could have on the plot was to be killed off.  
> \- Minor quibbles: I'm sorry, but I will laugh-cry forever if Laurel honestly believes that Ollie - note, DOUCHE OLLIE, now deceased - is the love of her fricking life. My real-time reaction to that was: *Pause* UMMMMM. *Gestures at shrine to Tommy bloody Merlyn* EXCUSE ME????!  
> \- In the vein of death scenes: I still cannot remember (much less spell) Whats Her Face in the flashbacks. How is she still alive??? They killed off Shado in the middle of the season. She must be too boring to kill off, because I cannot honestly think of another explanation as to why she's still around.  
> \- Also, the promo for the next episode looks ew. No. Nuuuuuu. Nopes.  
> *Rant over*


	20. Blood Secrets

A fog hung low and oppressive over the city. Somewhere in the misty gray, a horn blared, a cargo ship pulling out of the bay. Dick Grayson would probably have taken issue with her turn of phrase, but Blüdhaven was like a city-sized version of the Glades, pre-vigilante cleanup. Like Gotham’s grungier, emo cousin. It was the kind of place with rain-slicked alleys and police sirens always going off in the distance, where the air was perpetually thick with the threat of a gathering storm and the people were tougher than rusted nails.

And because it was them, _of course_ their recon spot was a deserted rooftop with nonexistent LED coverage.

Felicity shivered in the clammy air, her fingers slow and clumsy when it was the last thing she needed them to be. The newest arrowhead prototypes were spread out in front of her, pending use in actual combat, but she was having a hard time concentrating on usage instructions with Constantine’s murmured Aramaic in the background, as attention-grabbing as the buzzing of bees. “Mechanical engineering’s never been my strong suit,” she said, fumbling with the screw-on part of the shaft. “But those should give the Shade a retina problem for the immediate future. Give the base a twist to arm it, and remember to point _away_ from your eyes. You’d think I wouldn’t have to specify — you’d be surprised.”

Thea twirled one of the arrows around like a baton. “Gotta say, I’m a little relieved you didn’t mention the odds of them blowing up in our faces. Y’know, by accident.”

“I can still calculate them — if you want,” Felicity answered. “I was just showing an unusual level of tact.”

The arrowhead still wouldn’t go on. She muttered a string of profanities under her breath, which may have had something to do with Roy taking over for her. Gingerly, as though he was worried she’d blast the bejesus out of his corneas.

There was only so many things Felicity could be doing on the rooftop, and she’d just exhausted one of the options. Oliver had been his usual level of chatty, which was to say — _not_. He stood with his back to the rest of the group, facing the small circle of wax candles Constantine was seemingly capable of producing from his trench coat at will.

His muscles tightened infinitesimally when Felicity touched him, but the undercurrent of tension dissipated with recognition, and she notched her hand in the curve of his elbow.

She turned her face into his sleeve and kissed his shoulder, just as surely as he leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

_We have always fought hard for family and friends, the only difference now is that we’re still learning how to do it in the sun._

Some sun. Dragged, clawing and scratching back into the dark, whatever they did. Somehow, always back in the dark. Irony had never been a good friend of hers, and Felicity was _not_ in the mood to play hostess.

“I hate this,” she murmured.

“I know.” His touch was a warm anchor at the base of her spine. “But we’ll find him.”

She didn’t ask how he knew, but she did want to know something else. “So are you going to tell me what’s been eating at you?”

Oliver turned slightly, his posture a wordless question. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Felicity sensed the not-quite evasion, but not-quite answer, and decided to lay her cards on the table. “You’ve barely looked at the tech — tech that’s supposedly the only thing stopping the meta we’re chasing from disappearing back into the dark. If you really thought the Shade had taken Tommy, you’d be… _different_. I know you — I know you’re not the same person who’d go all _Hood_ on the person who kidnapped our son, but you’re acting like…like you know who has him, that it’s not the Shade, and you don’t want to tell me.”

The only movement seemed to be the pulse under Oliver’s skin, but Felicity waited. Waited and watched, tracking his features in the flickering candlelight. “How badly do you want to be wrong?” she whispered.

“I called Sara,” he said, which wasn’t an answer to the question. “I asked her to visit…Lian Yu.”

Felicity felt her breath catch at the words, and her fingers dug into Oliver’s arm. “And?” Calm, calm and collected.

“I hope I’m wrong. More than anything, I hope I’m wrong.” Oliver shook his head. “The message — _the ones I love_ — it sounds like something he would say.”

“But he’s in ARGUS an super-max. If he’d escaped, Amanda Waller would have —”

“ARGUS hasn’t existed for almost seven years.” The sentence seemed to bite, twisting away from them in the cold night air. “And we both know that nothing drives Slade Wilson more than revenge.”

Deep down, Felicity knew Oliver’s gut instincts were formidably accurate, especially where the doom and gloom were concerned.

But she also knew that many, _many_ things had changed since Oliver Queen last faced his old mentor.

“What about you?” she asked. “What drives _you_?”

Before Oliver could answer, Constantine jolted from his half-trance with a rasp. He shook his whole head, like a dog trying to get water out of its ears. “Time to pull your weight, love. Let’s bring the boy home.”

* * *

“Anyone else getting a bad feeling about this?” Roy asked, using a wholly inadequate undertone.

Diggle grunted assent. “I don’t like things I can’t understand, and magic’s pretty damn high on that list.”

Oliver was blessed with the ability to pretend like he hadn’t heard. Felicity, on the other hand, had not been so well-endowed (pun _not_ intended), especially since the two of them were standing in the center of a chalk circle adorned with unintelligible symbols.

Which wasn’t sacrificial or cultish at all.

“We can _hear_ you,” she muttered, mutinous to the max.

Constantine — blazing cigarette lighter in hand — used the side of his foot to nudge one of the guttering candles closer to a line that transversed the circle. “That ought to do it,” he said to himself, turning neatly on his heel despite the fire hazard that came with wearing a long trench coat near open flame.

“Is there any particular reason you can’t do the rest of the chanting and wand-waving, John?” Thea inquired, peering into the shallow brass basin filled with an indefinable mix of dried root substances, along with (inexplicably) a shredded peacock’s feather.

“I _will_ be doing the rest of the chanting, love — just without the wand-waving,” Constantine reassured her. “Wands are a popular misconception, encouraged by a certain talented British writer and her affection for magical boarding schools. The real thing’s much less glamorous — a lot of incense and dead languages, to start.”

“Funny, I was about to bet Oliver that you’d only seen the movies,” Diggle said, managing a frosty smile for the team’s resident charlatan (somehow Constantine’s words, not his).

“There were movies?” Oliver said under his breath.

Felicity didn’t have time to educate him in the precise nature of _Harry Potter_ (she’d _just_ gotten him onto Disney), so she shook her head. “Why exactly are Oliver and I standing in your — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — _magic circle_?”

“Young Thomas’s personal effects can only get us so far, in terms of distilling his precise location. I sensed him in Blüdhaven, but if we want to reach his side before we all shrivel up from old age, I’ll need those with a pure emotional connection to his soul. Pardon the crudeness of the suggestion, but I hope you’ve been bloody good parents to the boy.”

Only Constantine could get an eye-roll from Oliver where anyone else would have gotten a single-punch knockout. “One way to find out,” he said evenly.

Felicity raised a finger. “Pause. If we’re drawing blood, _please_ tell me you have a sterile knife somewhere in those pockets.”

Constantine smirked. “Eager, are you? Fortunately, love, I won’t be spilling anyone’s blood tonight. I’ll just need the pair of you handfast.”

No one moved.

“Come again?” Roy said.

Grumbling about the state of public education in _these_ (profanity redacted) _United States of Yankee America_ , Constantine reached irritably for their hands and slapped them together like a sandwich. “ _Honestly_.”

Standing in the center of the circle, Felicity laced her fingers through Oliver’s, sharing between them the weight of flesh and bone, in more ways than one. Her heart felt like it was trying to leap straight out of her throat, and she swallowed, hard.

“ _Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti_ …” Constantine intoned, a break in tension that earned him glares from pretty much everyone in the group.

He cocked his head, utterly unfazed. “Just trying to ease tender consciences before a Pagan ritual.”

“I’m Jewish,” Felicity said.

“Silly of me,” Constantine answered, and passed the lighter from one hand to the other with a wink.

It was Felicity’s turn to roll her eyes. She faced Oliver again, and their gazes locked, just for a second. He nodded slightly, standing his ground in the face of looming questions, still tantalizingly unanswered.

 _For Tommy_.

She closed her eyes without being told to and bowed her head over their clasped hands.

There was a brief _thwap_ , accompanied by a flash of amber and the crackle of an ignited flame. Vapor began to rise from the unidentifiable kindling — copious, acrid tendrils of smoke that seemed to twist its way into her throat and lungs.

Felicity coughed, heard Oliver cough too, but she stayed where she was, his hands tight in hers.

“Clear your minds of distraction,” Constantine said, as though the smell wasn’t burning his sinuses from the inside. “Nothing except the love you bear your boy. The smoke chases away the fog, so breathe slow, breathe deep.”

His voice was low and deliberate, as hypnotic as a pendulum swinging wide. Felicity felt herself slip away — just a little — into the strange half-world of mist and whispers.

“That’s it,” Constantine breathed. “You know his soul better than anyone else. Listen to the call.”

Watching Constantine work, Felicity sometimes wondered if magic — in its varying and differing forms — was just a primitive way (or extra-developed, depending on how they looked at it) of tapping into some kind of basic human awareness, a long-forgotten instinct. There was no way to _know_ what a soul sounded like, much less latch onto it from miles and miles away, but somehow she knew — with a shiver — what she was looking for.

High and clear and sweet, a soul as bright as the cupped warmth of a firefly, the whisper of a trusted secret, a smile like the sun peeking through clouds. A soul that was inextricably linked with a special place in her heart, along with the daughter she cradled to sleep and the man standing in front of her.

Sudden — jarring — was the sensation of breaking through the fragile barrier between _real_ and _not-real_ , here and there, lost and _found_.

“ _Welcome to…Lake Haven…_ ” a disembodied voice intoned. “ _Welcome to…Lake Haven…_ ”

Scribblings and scratchings of things moving in the dark. Grimed mirrors casting dim reflections across the floor, dull moonlight in patches. Breath coming in short bursts, wrists chafed raw by rope and struggling to get free. Dripping. But what?

Suddenly, stillness.

A hoarse whisper. _“Mommy?”_

* * *

Two strangled gasps, two dreamers escaping the same trance. Oliver managed to stand his ground, but Felicity stumbled backwards. He caught her forearm before she could fall, and they sank to their knees together.

He stroked the hair back from her face. “Alright?” he managed.

She nodded, holding onto his wrists as her pulse slowed.

“Well?” Constantine asked.

Oliver nodded. “We found him.”

* * *

“Why does it always have to be a deserted carnival?” Cisco asked, staring at the cackling clown jaw that made up the crumbling entranceway (only one of _four_ , he’d been informed).

Lake Haven was a totally misleading name. _Lake Haven_ was supposed to be log cabins and sweating mason jars of peach iced tea, wicker porch swings and romantic snuggly sunsets ( _dang it_ he missed Lisa).

It _definitely_ wasn’t supposed to be an abandoned amusement park near a stagnant body of water that looked like a cozy vacation home for a friendly clan of Grindylows. Surrounded by thick woods. Accessible only by deserted roads.

And the theme was _clowns_.

“ _Who_ thought this was gonna be a good idea?” he said, to absolutely no one except the overlords of logic and reason.

Connor hissed in his ear and Cisco clutched Tommy’s stuffed dinosaur to his chest with a high-pitched gasp. But in a manly way.

“That ain’t right,” he said, shaking his head at the kid. “That’s just rude. I don’t take your worst nightmare and do —” He batted at his ear, like there was a bug crawling over it, not the shiver of being totally _freaked out_.

“— _that_ ,” he finished.

Barry pulled the cowl over his head, helpfully equipped with night vision thanks to a certain engineering genius. “C’mon guys, stop messing around.”

Cisco pointed. “But he—”

Sometimes he forgot Barry already had a kid, and was about thirty percent less interested in _But Daaaad He Pushed Me_ back-and-forths. The look he shot Cisco was decisive, and Connor zipped up his jacket with a smirk, night vision specs around his chin.

Cisco glared beadily at the kid and pulled his customized pair of goggles over his eyes. “Okay,” he said, getting his tablet out. “I saw Tommy in a place that looked like a mirror house. I managed to get the plans for Lake Haven, and in the vein of bad management calls — _seriously_ , what kid likes clowns? — there _are_ a couple of mirror-themed attractions — bear in mind I use this word _very_ loosely — around the park. I’m not gonna suggest we split up, because that’s how people get murdered in every movie I’ve seen _ever_ , but —”

“We’re splitting up,” Barry announced. “Our priority is covering as much ground as possible. Connor, take Cisco with you. If anything happens —”

“—throw Vibe in front of me as a sacrifice and run for it,” Connor concluded. “Yes sir.”

Barry had acquired a tolerance for the kid’s wisecracks (nerves, he told himself it was just nerves) and only gave him a look. “If anything happens, I’ll keep the guy busy, and you two get Tommy out of there. Caitlin has our positions on the comms. She’ll direct us where we need to go. Cait?”

“Yes I do,” she said, sounding relatively comfortable in the safety of STAR Labs (why couldn’t _he_ be the pregnant one?) “First stop for Alpha team is the mirror maze. Beta team —”

“—there’s only _one_ person in Beta team,” Cisco muttered.

“—Beta team can check out the water ride. There’s some mirrors in there too.” Caitlin said the words like they were super sour candies. “ _Why?_ ”

“Right?” Cisco said.

“Okay, let’s move,” Barry said. “There’s a six-year-old kid somewhere in this place. Let’s get him home.”

They’d made it about two steps before — no joke — a wolf howled, far away, but somehow nowhere _near_ far enough.

Even Connor didn’t have anything to say to _that_.

“Anyone else have a bad feeling about this?” Cisco wondered.

* * *

Somewhere, a wolf howled.

Oliver slapped his hand onto Constantine’s chest before he could howl back. “ _Steady_ ,” he cautioned. “Wolves howl to signal their location to the rest of the pack. As long as we don’t stray into the forest, we won’t be trespassing on their territory.”

Looking thoroughly unconvinced by his reassurance, Thea whacked at the thicket of climber vegetation poking through the steel supports of what used to be a rollercoaster. “Hm,” she said sarcastically. “How can you tell?”

She had a point. Left to the elements for the last decade, Lake Haven Amusement Park had been taken over by the natural encroachment of creeping vines and untrimmed trees, tall feathery grass poking through wooden platforms and obscuring human walkways.

Roy nudged at a rusted swing chain, attached to a carousel with a central post so overgrown that it actually resembled a pine tree. “Abandoned amusement park, wolves, and clowns. Anyone else imagining Cisco squealing like a girl?”

A muffled slap, probably from Thea.

“In keeping with the running theme of general creepiness,” Felicity continued, as if she hadn’t just found out that the surrounding woods were apex predator territory, “we’re looking for mirrors. Something covered — think funhouse or some kind of ride. We’ll cover more territory if we split up —”

“As a horror movie aficionado,” Thea volunteered, “I’d like to register an official protest. Bad, _bad_ idea.”

“Noted,” Oliver said. “Red Arrow, Arsenal — you’re Beta team. Oracle, Spartan — you’re Alpha. Constantine, you’re with me. Keep the comms open. If there’s a distress call, we’ll need to back each other up. That means speed, and knowing where everyone else is.”

“Don’t trust me with the pretty girls, Mister _Green Arrow_?” Constantine queried.

Diggle slapped a magazine into his handgun with a brisk _snap_. “He doesn’t trust me not to _kill_ you if you keep talking,” he answered. “Don’t worry, we’ll get there someday.”

Constantine touched his fingers to his head in a sardonic salute, tipping a hat that wasn’t there. “Looking forward to it, mate.”

The circle held for a second longer, and everyone dispersed to their respective teams. Oliver reached for Felicity’s hand before she could go, gently holding her back. She didn't have a mask — she never did — but hazardous nature of the occasions that necessitated her leaving the Watchtower meant she had her own kevlar suit, complete with its own utility belt and loaded gun at her hip.

As much as his personal feelings towards an armed-and-dangerous Felicity Queen were strongly in the positive, the nature of what they were facing left him in a difficult position. “Normally I wouldn't ask this, but given the circumstances — are you sure you want to be out in the field?” he asked quietly.

“I could ask you the same question,” she answered, a crease between her eyebrows. “Tommy’s ours. What makes me a liability and not you?”

Everyone was tense, nerves making them say things they didn’t mean. Oliver sensed a fight building, and he didn’t want to quarrel with her, not now. “I never said you were a liability. But we both remember what happened the last time Slade was in the picture. He had you and he almost killed you.”

“Things change, Oliver.” Felicity softened, and she reached up to caress his cheek. “I love you for worrying, but if it’s Slade Wilson and he’s the one who took Tommy, I’m not the one who needs to be afraid.”

Oliver turned his head and found her lips in the dark, so lightly at first that it was almost an accident. It was awkward with tension at first, but her hands snaked into the back of his hair and deepened the kiss.

That — they meant. Every word.

When it was over, they looked at each other.

“Be careful,” she said.

Oliver nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

* * *

Ivy grew thickly around the park, and while Oliver made an effort to avoid them, Constantine’s default seemed to be muttered spells. “You said you heard a welcome voice in the vision,” he said, as the ivy retracted somewhat from his path. “That would imply someone flipped a switch somewhere to operate these hunks of scrap metal.”

“What’s your point?” Oliver asked.

“Well, why not leave them on? They’d make decent company, provide a little bit of illumination, maybe scare away some of the nastier beasties lurking in the forest. We’ve established that the mischief-maker who decided to cross you and the lovely Oracle has a penchant for games, yes?”

Oliver sensed he wasn’t going to like where the train of thought ended. “The human imagination doesn’t react well to the dark,” he said, scanning their surroundings. “Everyone sees things that aren’t there.”

“So we’re in accord then,” Constantine concluded. “The imp that took your boy is either trying to make one hell of a point, or —”

There was a crisp metallic _twang_. The smallest sound, easily lost in the rustle of leaves, but Oliver reacted on instinct, because in his experience —

It was the sound of a tripwire being pulled.

“ _John!_ ” Oliver lunged at the last possible second and caught the crossbow bolt a bare inch from Constantine’s throat. For the longest time, neither of them moved a muscle.

His Adam’s apple convulsed as he swallowed, and Constantine turned a sidelong glance in Oliver’s direction. “Could have caught that one, mate,” he said, with only the slightest change in tone. He might have been asking about a lost cigarette lighter.

Taking it for the appreciation it was, Oliver thrust the trick arrow away from them, far into the tall grass. “Didn’t want to take that chance,” he said shortly.

“Looks like I owe you another favor — for saving my life again.”

Another call was coming in. Oliver nodded and turned away to answer, momentarily glad for the respite until he realized the only reason for someone calling him, right then.

“Ollie,” Sara said, and contrary to expectations, the line was quiet, undisturbed by static. “I’m there. On Lian Yu.”

“Tell me.”

He heard something clatter in the background, a stray object overturned by her foot, a cavernous sound that told him more about the state of things than words ever could.

“It’s gone,” she said simply. “The prison — the Super-Max — it’s all gone. ARGUS hasn’t been here since…I don’t know when. It doesn’t look like the inmates were transferred. It looks like some kind of _riot_ broke out, and whoever got left behind…”

Oliver didn’t need to imagine the carnage.

“His cell. Is there a message?”

More rustling as Sara made her way through the deserted prison. There was a mechanical groan — like a lever being pulled — and electricity coursing through the abandoned circuits again.

She sighed, and Oliver knew.

“He left something for you,” she said. “Do you want to hear it?”

Oliver shut his eyes. “Yes.”

“He wrote: _Save the day, kid_.” Her voice quavered with emotion, like she was remembering the man they’d both known on the island and the monster he later became, the one who’d almost killed her sister. “It’s on his wall, and he left it for you.”

“Thank you, Sara. If it’s not too much to ask…please, come back to Starling. We need you, if we’re going to hunt him.”

“You know I will, Ollie. Where are you? What’s going on now?”

Oliver was momentarily at a loss for words. “It’s a long story,” he managed. “But it’s not going to end tonight.”

In the corner of his eye, he saw Constantine turn, listening with interest.

“I just have a feeling,” Oliver finished.

“I’m on my way,” she said. “Stay safe, Ollie.”

“I will.” They were both silent, as though searching for something more reassuring to say, and coming up short.

Oliver ended the call just in time to hear a surprisingly similar sound echoing through the park. Like a switch being flipped.

The lights came on all at once, not just the small bulbs adorning all the rundown rides, but the stark floodlights surrounding the forgotten boundaries of the park. The brightness was momentarily blinding, and he heard Constantine curse from the glare.

Oliver shielded his eyes until they adjusted to the light. All around them, the rides — the ones that weren’t obscured by weeds — ground to life. A towering clown in the center of the park began to move, rocking forward and back in an exaggerated gesture of laughter.

“ _Welcome to…_ ” it intoned, in a warped electronic voice, “ _Lake Haven…Welcome to…Lake Haven…Welcome to…_ ”

“Oliver?” Felicity’s voice in his ear. “Is your side —?”

“Yeah.” His bow at the ready, Oliver advanced towards the heart of the abandoned park. “He’s here.”

The cartoonish carousel was adorned with a medley of tarnished mirrors, most of them cracked rather than broken, splintering the world into disjointed pieces of the same whole, moving discordantly like some kind of unsettling mimic.

Oliver stared at the distorted reflection without realizing what he was seeing. What he thought was a shadow, except not really. Then — in one shattering moment of clarity — he whirled, an arrow ready to fire.

“ _You_ ,” he growled.

Tall, masked. The figure slipped away, and Constantine — without needing a warning — drew his arm back, a gathering of unearthly blue hellfire in the palm of his hand, and hurled the flare high into the sky.

“Get to Tommy,” Oliver said to Felicity, not caring if his rage cracked the fragile understanding of self-control between them. “I’ll find Slade.”

* * *

The blue flames exploded into the sky, and Felicity turned to Diggle, who’d heard everything.

“Go, go, _go_ —”

They took off, racing to get to the possible locations even though they didn’t quite know who they were competing against. There were a finite number of places Tommy could possibly be, and they’d already eliminated some of them. Felicity tried to think — past the racing of her pulse and frantic breathing that came with sprinting against time — she’d seen him in a dark place, but not so dark that there was no moonlight. Dripping — a water leak? That could be anywhere in a creep-house that was this non-amusement park.

Except —

“ _Lake Haven_.” She struggled to get her tablet open, scanning the old plans. “There _has_ to be a water ride. But where?”

Diggle found it first. “Rapids Cave,” he said, pointing at the very edge of the map. “It’s a tunnel ride. Plenty of places to hide.”

Felicity nodded and they broke into another sprint. “Beta team, what’s your status?”

Roy answered immediately. “We’re heading towards the distress call. Do you need backup?”

Diggle shook his head. “Negative. GA and Constantine are the priority. We’ll keep you posted.”

“Copy that.”

The rides all being turned on meant that there were more obstacles in motion than she’d anticipated, and virtually no way of telling if they were being followed, or if it was just the movement of machinery.

The gate to Rapids Cave was — predictably — padlocked tight, though they wouldn’t have been able to get through anyway, given the pileup of clown-head rafts blocking the entrance, bobbing in the slimy algae-fied water.

“C’mon. There’s a maintenance entrance somewhere,” Diggle guessed, after one look at the obstacles they’d have to jump.

Felicity followed behind, searching for some kind of opening in the outer facade. It was constructed like some kind of circus tent, albeit reinforced by actual steel and a decade of vegetation. There was a momentary break in the weeds, as much as sign of interference as it was hope —

They were so close now.

Diggle checked over his shoulder to make sure she was still there. She nodded, and he crashed straight through a rotted door with a well-placed kick. He swept the corners with his gun at the ready, and Felicity went after him, gun in one hand and flashlight over the other like he’d taught her.

“Tommy?” she called, shining the narrow beam into the tunnel.

 _Drip-drip_.

 _Drip_.

It was so cold that Felicity felt her skin prickle, even beneath the protective armor. They’d emerged on one side of the manmade river, the metal ledges meant for maintenance work populated first by mechanical clowns. They were rusted and filthy, lit from behind by low-burning orange lights, and they still moved (with sound effects) in some kind of unison. There were fewer rafts in the water, but that didn’t mean it was a percent less foul.

“I’m never taking Sara to one of these places, ever,” Diggle muttered, shining his flashlight into the other end of the tunnel.

“You and me both,” Felicity agreed.

They proceeded down the ride, picking their way around the jerking automatons. The cave walls dipped strangely away at times, probably for maintenance workers to get their gear into the place.

“ _Welcome to…Lake Haven_ …” echoed strangely though the tunnel, as though the water had amplified the sound and bounced it back at them, a dozen times over.

Felicity started, a hitch in her breath. “Did you hear that?”

Diggle looked confused. “There’s a lot to pick up. What’s wrong?”

She frowned in the direction of the way they’d come. “It sounded like…static.”

“The kind from Barry?” he asked. “He doesn’t know we’re here.”

“Yeah, but I could have sworn —”

Something heavy splashed into the water, and Diggle pushed her behind him, gun pointed at the corner. “Who’s there?”

A thump, and the unmistakable sound of a child’s sob.

Felicity wasn’t even aware she’d jumped into the freezing, slimy water. She wasn’t even aware she’d moved. Her only conscious thought was her son crying for her, and before she knew it, she was on the other side of the tunnel and running headlong into the full weight of a sprinting six-year-old boy.

_Alive._

_Thank god, alive._

“Tommy — god — are you —” Felicity kept trying to pull back to check him for cuts and bruises, but he wouldn’t let her go.

At the exact moment Felicity tried to lift her son, a few things happened. First: the tunnel entrance smashed open from some kind of blunt force. Second: the slippery walls of the tunnel glowed with an approaching light. Third: a red and yellow trail exploded into the familiar figure of their velocity-accelerated friend.

He’d swung Tommy up in his arms before Felicity realized what — or _who_ — was going on.

“I’ve got you,” he said, holding the boy tight. “I’ve g—”

Barry trailed off at the sight of Felicity and Diggle, staring just as incredulously at them as they were staring at him.

“What are you doing here?” Diggle asked.

“Me?” Barry said. “Cisco. What are you doing here?”

“Constantine,” Felicity answered, still not entirely sure of what she was seeing.

Tommy squirmed against Barry in protest. “ _Mommy_ ,” he croaked, and Barry immediately let him down.

There was a rope swinging from his arms, attached to his shaking wrists, and she tried to find a knot, smoothing his sweaty, dirty cheeks the whole time and trying not to make him more scared than he already was.

“Knife,” Diggle said, pulling one from his boot.

Tommy flinched at the sight of the blade, clutching his arms close to his chest. “No, sweetie — it’s okay. We’re just going to cut you loose, okay? Ok—”

Stammered into silence, because she’d realized why he was holding on so tightly. His right hand — only half-covered by his left — was contorted by an unnatural swelling, hot from the blood gathering at the damaged tissue, where the clean smooth line of his thumb was meant to be.

In one sickening moment, she understood how he’d gotten free. “You dislocated your thumb?” she whispered.

Tommy’s breathing was shallow with pain, and she pressed her shaking lips to his forehead. She could only hear a story she remembered Oliver telling her, one night, years and years ago. She’d been snuggled against his chest, sleepy from the time and his hand tracing the side of her thigh. She could feel the rough calluses against her lips, because she’d kissed his fingers one by one after he’d told her the story.

About how he’d pulled his thumb agonizingly out of joint to escape the restraints he’d woken up in, because he’d been so sure that his captor was going to kill him.

Slade Wilson.

“ _He’s still here_ ,” Tommy whispered, his gaze fixed on the other end of the tunnel.

Felicity stared at him. “What?”

Diggle shot first, a bullet that ricocheted in the direction of the disturbance. Felicity put herself in front of Tommy, gun locked and loaded.

“Barry, get him out,” she ordered, through gritted teeth. “Now.”

Barry didn’t wait to hear it twice. He disappeared with a burst of crackling electricity, taking Tommy with him.

Diggle adjusted his grip on the gun. “Kidnapping a child?” he called, with the barest tremor of anger. “That’s low, even for you, Wilson.”

Silence.

“You son of a bitch,” Felicity snarled. “Show your face and I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you ever do.”

But her mind was racing, beneath the reddish haze of pure rage. The flare had gone up halfway across the park. The others were closing in on someone who _looked_ like Slade. But if Slade Wilson was here, who was being chased?

“ _Here_ ,” Slade rasped suddenly, and Diggle went flying into the machines, slumped unconscious in the sparking debris.

Felicity spun around, but a hand intercepted her arm just as she squeezed the trigger. She missed, and a bullet clanged against the metal supports. A crushing grip slammed her wrist into the wall, a similar one twisted around her throat.

“Hello, Felicity,” Slade said, his one eye gleaming with malice. “It’s been a long time.”

“ _Go — to — hell_ ,” Felicity croaked, her vocal chords straining against the pressure of his fingers.

“I should have warned you before you married him,” he said. “Lies are in Queen’s blood. Why should it be any surprise that his son’s as much a liar as his father?”

Taunting as it was, the statement didn’t quite register in terms of substance. “Tommy?” she said, confused.

In lieu of an answer, Slade lifted her straight off the ground, his hands still around her throat. Felicity choked, but the struggle didn’t stop him from throwing her clear across the tunnel. She slammed back-first into the wall, her head thumping metal, and by the time her ears had stopped ringing long enough for her to struggle upright, he had gone.

Son.

_Which one?_

* * *

Oliver was running. He’d lost sight of Slade only once, but only because he’d decided to use the rooftops as a way to escape. In his peripheral vision, he could see Roy and Thea following behind him, firing arrows from the ground.

Slade had always been agile, and Oliver could see that years of incarceration had changed nothing, seeing him race across the tops of the lurching, spinning rides in the abandoned carnival.

He seemed to hesitate in front of a chasm between two rides, but narrowly ducked an arrow a second later, which seemed to change his mind. With a single leap, Slade cleared the gap without so much as a pause, and Oliver didn’t stop to consider the consequences of falling behind.

He did — however — see an opportunity to slow him down.

“Arsenal, Red Arrow — take down the floodlight, south side,” he said, reaching into his quiver for a trick arrow. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

Flushing out prey, just like Slade had taught him. Oliver shot arrow after arrow, using a series of close shaves and near-misses to turn him in the direction he wanted him to go. An explosion went off somewhere ahead, and Slade faltered, head raised towards the towering shaft swaying dangerously above him.

“ _SLADE!_ ” Oliver bellowed, and the figure turned.

Just in time to get a blast of light in the face, courtesy of the Justice League. Oliver drew another arrow as Slade stumbled, arms in front of his eyes to shield against the light, and fired right at his ankles.

The cable snaked over a warped steel beam, and when Slade careened from the rooftop, Oliver jerked the wire taut. He fell, only to swing upside down from the shaft, strung up like a rabbit in a snare.

Oliver’s sides burned from the exertion as he made his way towards the struggling figure. Up close, he could see that something wasn’t quite right. The person he’d caught was narrower in the shoulders and chest than Slade, and what he’d thought was dull orange and black was just some kind of dark camouflage gear, the mask actually a hood, and the sword across his back was —

A recurve bow clattered to the ground, and Oliver grabbed the stranger’s shoulder, wrenching him around.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

No answer, and Oliver twisted his grip into the hood — yanked it clear.

The realization hit him like a blow to the chest.

“Hi dad,” Connor said breathlessly, as though he wasn’t hanging upside down from an abandoned carnival ride with dark greasepaint around his eyes. “I can explain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah...so that happened. I would just like to say that I haven't been subtle about it. At all.  
> The thumb dislocation is a throwback to Oliver escaping Slade's restraints in the flashbacks, I may be a horrible person, but I do these things with (some) purpose.  
> Can I just say that, as late as these chapters are, I had a ridiculous amount of fun writing them (not the thumb part, that was self-hate-worthy)??? I love writing missions as much as I love writing the fluff, plus Cisco freaking out is always fun.  
> Abandoned carnivals are always nice to imagine.  
> Went a bit crazy with the magic rituals and Vibe stuff, I have to admit. But it's fanfic, so I can indulge myself. Any reason to put Constantine in the story is always good.


	21. Trust, Questioned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooo. And we're back! Last five episodes to season four! (Time for Malcolm to bite the dust, hopefully)

Felicity’s mouth was as dry as sawdust, her throat sending its own distress signal in the form of synchronized throbbing, like a red-hot collar where Slade’s fingers had crushed. But she rolled onto her back anyway, reaching for her friend in the uneven light. “John,” she coughed. “ _John_ , are you —?”

An animatronic clown head plopped into the slime-water and Diggle gave a reassuring groan. “Is he gone?”

Felicity looked over her shoulder, one last sweep of the tunnel. “Gone,” she said, and it sounded like she was trying to comfort herself. “He’s gone.”

Diggle kicked, and more crushed machine parts followed their predecessors into the murk. “Goddammit.”

A stray wire zapped Felicity’s knuckle ( _rude_ ) when she tried to help Diggle to his feet, as though a computer nerd clocking in at five-foot-six could do much to help an excess-of-six-feet war vet with the largest upper body any of them had collectively seen.

But it was the effort that counted.

“I thought my days of getting thrown around by Slade Wilson were over.” Diggle cracked his neck, ignoring the bleeding cut underneath his eye. “That guy could medal for Australia or New Zealand or wherever the hell he comes from.”

“I’m sure the throwing sport categories have a psychopath ban,” Felicity said, searching the hidden pockets in her suit for the emergency medical kit. “But if it helps, I think got an upgrade. This here used to be bait — now I get the rag doll treatment just like everyone else. _Equality_.”

Diggle choked out a laugh. “Sounds like a real win, Oracle.”

Felicity finished pasting butterfly stitches across the worst of the cuts and pulled an arm over her shoulder. “C’mon Spartan, let’s get you home,” she said, giving his side a reassuring pat.

Diggle winced, and she reconsidered her statement. “Maybe an X-ray too.”

“Yeah, Tommy and I can get some dinosaur band-aids together,” he grunted. “Sounds fun.”

“Sorry buddy, Tommy gets to go first,” she said. “I sent him ahead with Barry. You’re a little too heavy to carry — his words, not mine.”

Diggle snorted. “The day Barry tries to pick me up is the day he gets a gun up his nose.”

“I thought you liked Barry.”

“I do, but one of these days, he’s gonna go too far with the whole superhero thing. He gets a lead on Oliver’s son and decides to lone-wolf it without sharing the intel?” Diggle shook his head. “That’s the kind of thing that started that little ice-off with Oliver after Kaznia.”

Felicity agreed, quietly, but she was more than hopeful that Oliver would choose to see past that tiny little detail, and focus instead on the positives. They had Tommy back, and he was on his way to a fully qualified medical professional with his pediatric record on file. She also knew for a fact that Caitlin had snapple-flavored lollipops in her drawer, and Tommy would eat _anything_ as long as it was red.

The tunnel sported a few more gaping holes than it had at the beginning, what with Barry’s explosive entrance, but Felicity went for the good old-fashioned door, arm-over-shoulder with Diggle.

The cold made Felicity’s throat feel like a slab of raw meat, except she was more focused on her earpiece, which seemed to have breathed its last breath in the slime water (she _really_ needed to take a biohazard shower after this was over).

“Is your comm dead?” she asked.

“Lost it in the water.” Diggle pointed somewhere ahead. “But I think the property damage over there’s a pretty safe bet.”

Property damage was putting it lightly, Felicity thought. Especially since one of the floodlights was now bent at an interesting acute angle, smack-dab in the middle of the still-operational rides.

“At least we can say we gave the place a little bit of _character_ ,” she muttered, privately wondering who she’d end up writing the _so sorry we broke your Creepy Clown Town_ apology check to.

 _Children’s Worst Nightmares LLC_? Probably.

Diggle started walking faster, half-dragging her along with him. “What the —” he said, frowning at the scene in front of them.

Their friends were all there, with the addition of a black-hoodied Cisco, who looked like he’d been caught red-handed playing with Oliver’s best compound bow (not a euphemism). They were all clustered around something of interest, and her heart skipped a beat until she managed to do a quick head-count.

So that was ruled out.

“We’re here,” Felicity called, and immediately regretted it for the half-strangled croak that came out instead. “Sorry — we lost our comms in the fisticuffs — _oh_ —”

Oliver turning and Oliver _grabbing_ were somehow blended into two actions, and Felicity found herself an inch or so off the ground in a rough hug, one hand on her back and the other almost in her hair, his breath shaky against her ear.

She was past questioning it, at this point.

“I’m here,” she whispered, teetering slightly on her toes as Oliver reassured himself — against the innumerable and stubborn nagging fears — that he had her, _safe_. “We’re okay. Well — I am — mostly. Are you? Okay?”

It seemed like an eternity before Oliver finally answered, and even then, he was miles away. “Yeah. I think so.”

There was something in his voice that put her on alert, and she checked him over for obvious signs of distress, only half-aware of the attention on her throat.

And the probable signs of fingermarks.

“Where is he?” Oliver asked, dangerously quiet.

Felicity shook her head. “Gone. He said something — _supervillain-y_ — picked me up, and tossed me straight across the room. Something about your son and lying, which if you ask me, sounds like some cryptic distraction techni— what? What?”

Oliver had stiffened without warning, his fingers digging into her shoulders. Felicity touched his face and found it cold.

“Where’s Tommy?” he said.

“I wanted Caitlin to get a look at him ASAP, so I sent him ahead with Barry —”

Oliver recoiled, and it seemed like everyone in the group except for Diggle and Felicity winced. “You let him take our son?”

It was like she’d offered him up as a sacrifice in a satanic ritual, he sounded so betrayed. The muscles in his neck and face worked in agitation, but Felicity still didn’t see what the problem was.

“Of course I did,” she answered, nonplussed. Maybe he’d been zapped with some stray electricity. “Oliver, it’s Barry. Of course I trust him — _we_ — trust him. And bonus, he runs fast.”

A beat.

“What’s going on?”

The expression on his face darkening like the gathering of stormclouds, Oliver moved aside to show her what everyone had been standing around.

More accurately, _who_.

Felicity actually did a double take. Because greasepaint and leather was a hit of deja vu, except that it had been in the backseat of her car, totally by surprise, and about…ten years ago.

Also, with his father.

Connor was ostentatiously in a position of disgrace, sitting on the ground with some cable (zip-line arrow, she guessed) still around one ankle. A few scrapes and welts, but the gear — along with the non-athletic shop bow — on _and_ beside him was indicator _numero dos_ that he wasn’t just around as tech support. He gave a little wave, the sheepish look on his face almost identical to his dad’s when caught out in a lie. “Hi, Felicity.”

Diggle swore, colorfully and emphatically, but Felicity felt like the circumstances warranted her adding to the level of profanity in the air, if what she saw reflected the absolute truth of the situation. “Frack,” she muttered, because there was _no_ way that this was going to end well. “Oh frack.”

* * *

The headlights on Oliver’s bike sliced through a fine mist of rain as it pulled into the lot at STAR Labs (now the Central City base for all things Justice League), followed shortly after by Constantine’s improbable yellow taxicab and Cisco’s spray-painted minivan.

Felicity stiffly uncoiled her arms from around Oliver’s middle and hopped down from the bike, soaked to the skin and in serious need of heavy-duty lozenges for the sandpaper-voice she’d _definitely_ have by now. There was also a strong argument to be made for a bed and some shut-eye.

But there was no time for that.

Felicity honestly wasn’t sure if she’d have reconsidered, knowing what she did about Barry’s involvement in Connor’s nocturnal hobbies, to let him rush Tommy in for emergency medical care. Their son having a dislocated thumb was a pretty unshakeable reason to get him to a doctor, regardless of who was doing the rushing.

She _was_ sure that Oliver didn't like it one bit, but like her, he was pretty much caught between a rock and a hard place.

The ride home had been largely silent, except for the clipped exchanges (always a warning sign with Oliver) getting each other up to speed on their respective sides of the mission.

Slade Wilson had escaped his cell on Lian Yu.

ARGUS (or whatever the hell they were calling it these days) hadn’t given them the heads-up.

And Connor was somehow an Arrow-in-training.

With Team Flash’s help.

Between the threat of arch-nemeses resurfacing, a catastrophic failure in intra-organizational communication, children becoming junior vigilantes…Felicity was having a hard time choosing the absolute worst one.

Though based off the look on Oliver’s face, Felicity knew for sure that none of them were lower than _Oh Holy Frack_.

Caitlin was waiting for them on the med bay floor, her hands already raised in reassurance. “Tommy’s completely fine,” she said. “A little dehydrated. I gave him some fluids and a light sedative, and he’s sleeping now.”

For obvious reasons, she looked apologetically at Oliver between pauses, as though he was an active volcano she expected to erupt any moment. Cisco must have emergency-texted her from the van, or (and this was highly probable) Caitlin was smart enough to put two and two together.

Touching Caitlin’s forearm as she passed, Felicity went on her knees beside Tommy’s bed, smoothing the hair falling across his forehead. There was nothing more she wanted to do than pick him up and squeeze-cuddle for the rest of the night, but the clear tubes and wires were all persuasive necessity reasons to let him sleep. “How is he?” she croaked, careful not to disturb the thick splint and bandages around his right hand.

“His thumb’s not broken,” Caitlin promised. “I ran some X-rays and tox screens, just to make sure. Judging from the way it was pulled out of joint, he still had to move quite a bit to get through the restraints. They were tied tight enough to cause some bruising.”

“He wanted to get out.” Oliver wasn’t looking at her, but at the illuminated X-rays on the wall. “There was no other way.”

Only Felicity heard the edge in his voice.

“Childhood hand injuries are relatively common, and they all heal with proper treatment,” Caitlin said softly. “I don’t know how he thought of dislocating his finger, but he’s a very brave boy.”

Oliver’s gaze alighted on the patched toy tucked under Tommy’s chin, and the thunderous expression on his face softened. “Thank you, Caitlin,” he said, and Felicity echoed the sentiment.

Caitlin left quietly, shutting the glass door behind her as she went. Oliver released his breath in a prolonged sigh, one that (thankfully) said more of exhaustion than anything else, and pulled up a chair to sit at his son’s bedside.

He kissed his son’s exposed cheek and laid a hand on his dark head, managing a faint smile when Tommy’s response was to snuggle deeper into the covers, arms wrapped securely around his favorite toy. His broad palm and long fingers made Tommy look even smaller by comparison, even more fragile — despite the fact that everything of the last forty-eight hours had shown them he was anything but.

“Do you remember that night,” he began, more of an out-loud thought than anything resembling a question, “when I told you the story about how I first met Slade, and how —”

“—he tied you to a chair and was going to kill you?” Felicity finished, grasping his other hand and kissing his fingers. “You dislocated your thumb to get away.”

Oliver blinked slowly, as though in substitute for a nod. “What are the chances?” he asked, so softly. “I just…sometimes I don’t know if it’s coincidence or something else, but what if —”

“ _Oliver_ ,” Felicity said, before he could finish articulating the guilt-spiral. Her voice sounded about as smooth as a nail file, and for all accounts and purposes she was meant to leave all the talking up to him, but it was worth the ache in her vocal chords to stop him from going to _that_ place.

“We got him back, Oliver. That’s what matters.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s not your fault.”

Oliver didn’t look convinced. “What if it’s me? What if it’s…in my blood?” He shrugged, helplessly. “I mean, with Tommy, and Connor…”

 _There_.

 _Lies are in Queen’s blood_ , Slade had hissed. Felicity liked to put arch-villain taunts at a firm fifteen percent believability, but it was impossible to deny that Slade Wilson of all people knew where and how to hit Oliver where it hurt.

“I don’t know,” Felicity admitted, and she meant it. “But I do know two things. I know that you love your children, whatever they do, and that the starting point to handle all of this — is like an adult. Which involves not blaming yourself for everything that happens. You know, just like we talked about.”

Oliver cracked a smile, albeit a short-lived one. “I don’t remember,” he said gently.

Felicity shifted over, climbing into his lap so she could put her arms around his neck and cuddle him like she would with any of the Queen men in distress. “I’ll sign you up for that refresher course,” she teased. “I hear the teacher’s a real bombshell.”

Oliver pushed her dampened hair aside to bare her throat, a deep crease in the middle of his eyebrows when he took in the bruising again. “Slade did this,” he said, as though to remind himself. “Are you —?”

“Fine,” Felicity said, moving his hand away from her throat. “Sounds worse than it is. I’ll have a man-voice for the next few days, but anything to freak Curtis out, right?”

Oliver only looked at her. “You don’t have to be funny with me. You never have.”

Felicity let the facade slip a little. “I have to admit…I thought my days of getting picked up and thrown around like nothing were over. I also thought having a gun was going to be more helpful against Deathstroke. Guess I still have some things to learn about handling myself out there.”

“You handle yourself _fine_ ,” he answered. “I’ve seen you do it.”

Felicity kissed his forehead and nose. “And we _will_ talk about it — Slade, everything else — tomorrow. Right now, let’s just…have this. We got our son back. The rest can wait.”

Oliver’s head was heavy on her chest, and she stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. But he kept staring at the far wall, unseeing, his eyes dark with something vast and unnamable. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Felicity,” he admitted, and she knew he didn’t mean Slade. “I really don’t know.”

* * *

Oliver was good at self-denial, withholding the things he felt he didn’t deserve. Closing his eyes to sleep — after everything that had happened — felt like a luxury he wasn’t meant to indulge in, not until his son opened his eyes.

Felicity was on the other side of their son’s bed, dozing sideways on the chair with her cheek pressed against the backing. Between the two of them, she’d exhausted herself the most, worrying about the little boy that was a third of her heart, so precariously close to irreversible danger. She’d finally given in, under protest, and after repeated assurances that he’d wake her as soon as Tommy did.

Until then, the heart monitor carried on marking the seconds, and Oliver continued to think. He was used to this, laying out his thoughts in front of him, fanned around him like a dozen different paths and a dozen different possibilities. Tommy, Slade, ARGUS, Waller, Sara, Connor…Barry.

Connor…he couldn’t even begin to fathom how to deal with the situation, and instead of thinking about how to start the dialog, all he could think about was the beginnings of the story, where it had all started.

A part of him had always known his son would have a not-quite-normal life. It was the kind of thing inescapable by dint of Oliver’s involvement in his life, belated as it was. The biggest struggle before he’d worked up the courage to meet his son had been what Connor would think of him, this absentee father, this mystery figure who wanted to claim a right he in no way deserved…but it had also been the choice itself.

Acknowledging Connor as his son would open up a world of danger, and Oliver’s conscience had always been pained by the possibility that he’d inflicted irreparable harm on his life, because of what he did as the Green Arrow.

So he’d made a promise, one implicitly understood by Felicity and explicitly guaranteed to Sandra — he would, as far as possible, keep Connor out of his work as a vigilante. As experienced in denial as Oliver could be, the practicalities of protecting Connor involved a certain degree of learning self-defence. Nyssa had told him as much, within seconds of their first conversation about Connor. There was no way it would be fair to Connor if Oliver didn’t teach him how to protect himself, and he had.

To an extent.

Oliver remembered, too clearly, that Nyssa had offered to train Connor in Nanda Parbat, train him personally with Sara, make sure he would be a fighter in his own right. He’d weighed the possibility for a long time, the idea of Connor training with the League of Assassins (League of Shadows, now), but he’d never told him.

At the time, it seemed…too much. Too much of a step away from normalcy. Too much of a step into the life Oliver didn’t want for him. The reasons _against_ were innumerable: from the standpoint of a soldier in the field, from the perspective of a parent who still wanted to keep his child safe from all the world, and, more selfishly, because he’d blame himself for it. Every day, every second, being the reason Connor chose danger over stability, masks and secrecy over a life completely in the light of day.

But he had.

Barry _knew_ this. Maybe not in so many words, but he knew — or he’d _known_ — Oliver well enough to gauge where he stood. As a father himself, he must have known. He must have.

Oliver’s fingers tightened into a fist on Tommy’s sheet, veins standing out against the back of his hand. The blood pounded in his ears — so loud that at first, he didn’t realize that Tommy was awake and watching him, albeit groggily from a stack of pillows.

“Hey,” he whispered, closing a door on the dark thoughts so that he could focus on his son. “How’re you feeling, buddy?”

Tommy didn’t answer at first, but looked around the room, taking it in with his wide, dark eyes, from corner to corner. Unlike his sister, whose eyes were a decided blue, Tommy’s were in the elusive territory between gray and blue, sparsely edged with lashes that gave him the perpetual appearance of being inquisitive. He’d inherited the birdlike head-tilt from his mother, and Oliver had never been happier to see it in his life.

It must have been a strange sight, waking up in a strange room, an immobilizing cast on his dominant hand, seeing his parents in their unusual clothes. Felicity dressed in Oracle gear, asleep in a chair, Oliver still in the Green Arrow suit, his bow and arrows sitting against the wall behind him. Tommy took all of this in, wiggled the fingers poking out of his white cast, and his small face suddenly broke into an impossibly large grin.

“ _Cool_ ,” he breathed.

Oliver found himself smiling too, putting his hand in Tommy’s and leaning over to kiss his forehead. “Cool?” he said. “I thought you were going to give me more of a hard time.”

Tommy looked curious, and Oliver glanced behind him to see that Felicity was awake, watching the exchange with a quiet smile.

“Why?” Tommy asked. “You and mommy came to get me.”

“Hi, monster,” Felicity said, climbing onto the side of his bed. Tommy giggled and cuddled into her stomach without waiting for specifics. Oliver had taken off his mask and left it on the side of his pillow, an unofficial trophy Tommy now clutched in his small hand, flushed with pride.

“Did you think we weren’t coming?” Oliver asked.

Tommy shook his head vigorously, so hard that he seemed to have made himself woozy. “Nope.”

“Were you scared?” Felicity asked, and Oliver knew they were both watching him carefully, wanting him to be all right.

Tommy pressed his lips together, turning the mask over and over in his hand while he thought of the answer. “A lot,” he admitted. “I was sleeping at the party, and then I wasn’t, and this guy said he knew you and daddy and that I was bad…I wanted you to find me but I wasn’t sure because he wanted you to find me too, and then I thought if I could run away, I could hide and keep you and daddy from seeing him…but you saw him, right?”

“That’s not important, Tommy,” Oliver said, steadily. “You’re back with us now, and we’re taking you home first thing tomorrow.”

Tommy mulled over the possibility, scratching at the part of his forearm just above the cast. “I can keep this, right?” he asked, wagging it like a flag. “I want Hazel and Henry and everyone to sign it.”

“We’ll do it in glitter,” Felicity promised, squeezing him around the middle, just to hear him laugh.

Oliver ruffled his hair again, eliciting another bright smile in response. “I’m sorry about your hand — if we’d come and found you sooner, you wouldn’t have had to hurt yourself to get out,” he said quietly.

Again, the same innocent curiosity, as though he couldn’t imagine why his dad was saying something so strange. “You’re being weird, daddy,” he said, his voice clear and sweet. “Is he being weird, mommy?”

Felicity looked like she was trying not to cry, kissing the top of his head and holding him close to her again. “Daddy gets like this sometimes,” she said thickly. “Give him a poke and he’ll — he’ll go back to normal.”

Taking his mother’s words to heart, Tommy tried to extend his free arm as far as he could, but only got as far as Oliver’s nose. The result was all three of them laughing, in their various feeble and exhausted ways, and at the end of it, Tommy blinked at them, solemn as a barn owl. “It’s not your fault,” he said, soft and utterly himself. He smiled at them, without his usual self-consciousness. “You came to get me.”

Oliver shared a look with Felicity, and her response was to gather her son closer, her chin nestled at the peak of his curly head.

It was bright, and warm, and _fierce_ — this protectiveness for the two people in front of him. Hazel, Tommy, Felicity, others too…they were his family, and it was like someone had once said to him, there was _nothing_ that couldn’t be done for the sake of family.

That had never been truer than it was then, and Oliver looked his son in the eye. “Always,” he answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on 4x19   
>  \- Everyone was at the top of their game in this episode, flashback or no flashback. Great acting all around.  
> \- Quentinnnnnnn. Nooooooo. He and Oliver (Paul and Stephen) have the best emotional scenes. I thought 4x04 was the highlight, but they're so good at being heartbreaking together.  
> \- Weird Black Canary person. I thought she'd be some kind of meta, but did they ever explain how she managed to use Laurel's collar? She also looks about two feet shorter than Laurel, though I'm sure all logic is suspended when a room full of security people and a mothereffing evil mayor lady aren't enough to stop her from just strolling out after THREATENING THE MAYOR WITH A GUN.  
> \- Nyssa needs more scenes.  
> \- The flashbacks. I don't know if the writers thought they were showcasing Laurel's good side, but that was NOT it. So she stands up at the funeral and tells everyone how much she loved Tommy (in every possible way) and a week later she's snogging Oliver in front of the fireplace and planning a future together. Yeesh. And I thought the through-the-window sex scene was a bad idea. More Lawyer Laurel scenes, please. Not...whatever that was.  
> \- I'm sorry, but I'll never stop finding it funny that Oliver _literally_ went to hell (Purgatory, same thing) to avoid the "future" his ex-girlfriend planned out. Also, NO she was not the best of you. The two of you brought out the literal worst in each other. Bizarre way to end a character's story with a romance that didn't work out. Just one person's opinion.  
>  \- WHAT'S ANDY DOING TO DIGGLE IN THE PROMO FOR 4x20???! IS THAT A MEAT SAW????!


	22. And It All Falls Down

Connor wasn’t totally sure if he was sulking. He did know that he’d been sitting in silence for a long time (so long that the dampness on his suit had evaporated), a mug of Cisco’s _abuela_ ’s sleepy-time tea getting cold at his elbow, listening to six adults (five, if Cisco played for the babyfaced team) argue in low voices about what to do with the kid, or shoot not-at-all surreptitious looks from their various positions around the Cortex.

Well, not Constantine. He was too busy trying to smoke a cigarette without setting off the fire alarm.

Whatever uncle John (Diggle, AKA Helpful Advice uncle) said about the dude under his breath, the man had his priorities straight.

On the subject of litmus tests, there was no surer sign of him being a flaming disappointment than his dad’s best friend giving him the silent treatment. Not that he’d been nasty — uncle John was _way_ too good at the dad gig for that. But microwaving a mug of sleepy-time tea (without honey) was out of character for a guy who had a moral compass straight enough to give TED Talks on the subject of how to be a not-horrible human being.

Not that he could really blame them. There might as well have been a scarlet _A_ on his chest, which really should have been an _M_.

For, like, _Murdered_.

Because of the small, teensy, insignificant detail that his dad was going to _kill_ him.

Seeing everyone in their gear wasn’t weird at all for him, not with the amount of time he’d spent in the Watchtower. He’d actually pretended everyone’s frowns were upside down for a while, and with slight scene tweaking, it really could have been a team cool-off session, post-successful city-saving.

Except the invisible circle around him that isolated the zone of those _Doomed to Die_.

A red-leathered boot nudged his, and Connor looked up. “C’mon kid,” said Thea, a first-aid kit under her arm. “Let’s see those scrapes.”

Connor rubbed his stinging cheek self-consciously. “It’s not a scrape.”

His aunt gave him a look. “Resist and I start calling them _boo-boos_.”

Connor mumbled something unintelligible to keep up the impression of profanity and teenaged resistance, while Thea plunked the kit on the workstation and rolled a chair over to sit beside him.

“So,” she said, giving the disinfectant spray a businesslike shake, “why’d you do it?”

It was Connor’s turn to give _her_ a look. “Seriously? Because I’ve always dreamed of rooftop parkouring and I have delusions of grandeur that I, a scrawny teenager, have the power to change the world. Blame all the _Harry Potter_ and _Hunger Games_ books — they taught me to rebel.”

Thea whacked him lightly at the back of the head. _Lightly_ , meaning Connor chose to believe that his aunt hadn’t intended to cause him actual bodily harm. “ _Hey_ ,” she said warningly. “You of all people don’t get to be snarky right now.”

Connor gingerly rubbed the spot where she’d hit him. “You know what they say about last meals…might as well get a few hits in before my dad straight-up murders me.”

“He’s not going to straight-up murder you,” Thea said, turning his face to the side so she could clean the cut. “He’s definitely going to impose martial law on your social life, so there’s that to look forward to. I actually think it might be a good sign if he shoots something at you. He only shoots people he cares about — ask your uncle.”

Connor’s shoulders crawled with shivers, which he was hard-pressed to hide. “Which one?” he muttered, faced with the option of John, Barry, and Roy.

Thea snorted. “All of them. Try to keep up, kid.”

She sprayed a scrape on his neck and Connor hissed like a cat. Icy antiseptic spray on an open would was no joke. “That _stings_ ,” he said, trying his best (and probably failing) not to sound like a huge baby.

“Rite of passage,” Thea answered, continuing to disinfect with the utmost nonchalance. “How do you think your uncle Roy got so good with a needle?”

“I thought he just practiced in his spare time. On his secret shrine of rainbow unicorn t-shirts.”

Another whack to the back of the head, but this time from his uncle, who popped up from behind the workstation and swung his legs around to sit on the table top. “Watch it, kid. I could kick your ass on the sparring mat.”

Connor rolled his eyes in the interests of reserving some dignity, but also because Thea had slapped some gauze in his hand to keep pressure on one of his cuts and he was pretty sure he’d squeak if he tried to make a sound.

Besides giving him and his suit a speculative once-over, Roy took the time to peer at his cuts, hooking a finger in the leather collar to pull it down. “Cut yourself drawing an arrow, didn't you?” he guessed. “Your quiver strap’s too tight, and the angle’s probably off.”

Instead of coming to her (beloved) nephew’s defence, Thea hiked up the cuff of his sleeve to show Roy the welt on his wrist.

Which — if anyone was interested — _rude_.

“His technique’s a little slow on the recoil,” she remarked. “The string’s still hitting his wrist when the arrow flies.”

“I’m _right here_ ,” Connor said indignantly. “What is this, some kind of mind trick to make me rethink my life choices?”

Thea smoothed a gauze patch over the cut and touched his cheek. “No, because we’re trying to show you what it’s like to have three archers in the family — four if you count your aunt Sara. If you’d just _waited_ a few more years, we would have taught you everything you wanted to know,” she said, looking him in the eye. “I’m sure everyone on Team Flash meant well, but none of them use a bow and arrow. All the Wikipedia and tech upgrades in the world won’t teach you what it’s like to shoot a target while you’re jumping off a rooftop, or how to follow through on a shot so you don’t hurt yourself.”

Connor twisted his head (and cheek) out of Thea’s reach. “Like my dad would have _actually_ taught me how to shoot,” he retorted. “He stopped when I hit high school, said I was too old for summer camp sports. You saw his face — he doesn’t want me anywhere near his precious Justice League.”

“Hey.” Roy leaned forward. “Oliver has a blind spot when it comes to the people he cares about. If you’re irritated, it’s usually because he’s trying to protect you.”

Connor’s temper flared, because _bull._ That was the kind of line movie superheroes used on their clueless girlfriends to get them all warm and fuzzy. He was a lot of things: stubborn, snarky, but not clueless.

“Really? So how’d the two of you end up on the team?” he asked, folding his arms. “Are you seriously telling me that my dad didn’t put up a fight?”

Roy and Thea exchanged glances. _Aha_.

“So you pushed until he didn’t have a choice,” Connor guessed. “Because that’s the only way he’ll get past that blind spot.”

Thea was the one who answered. “Yes,” she said. “But once you’re old enough. Spin it however you want, Connor, but we were both a lot older than you were when we signed on.”

“Because I’m sixteen it automatically means I don’t know what I want?”

“Maybe you do,” Roy said. “Maybe the world’s broken and you’re trying to do your part to piece it together. Maybe you’ve spent your whole life watching your family go off to war and you want to be a part of it. But _think_ , for a second, why they’re fighting. It’s not just to fix what keeps on breaking. Maybe it’s so the people they care about — like you — don’t have to.”

Connor knew enough from the stories that Roy had been the resident firestarter in the team for a long time. He wasn’t sure how he felt about being schooled by the historically trigger-happy one in the team, but it wasn’t the greatest feeling in the world.

It also showed him that — contrary to his mom’s favorite saying — even the most stubborn leopard eventually changed their spots.

“What about picking up where they leave off?” he asked. “What happened to leaving a legacy?”

Thea shook her head. “It’s not just about that, Connor. To leave a legacy, there has to be something _left_. You —” she cut herself off, and Connor sat straighter in his chair.

“What?” he said, his senses prickling with uneasiness. “Why won’t there be something left?”

Roy hastily stepped up to help Thea. “It’s between your dad and Barry, kid. But can I give you a little advice? Doesn't matter, because I’m going to. You are going to talk this out with your dad, because you owe him some kind of explanation. _Without_ sass, okay?”

Connor was about to agree — because he did, as much as the idea made his stomach squirm — when the elevator doors whooshed open, and Oliver stepped into the room with Felicity.

Beside him, Roy exhaled, and Connor wished he’d pressed harder for the answers. It was all on his uncle’s face, that he was waiting for something very bad to happen, and said very bad something had _everything_ to do with what Connor had done.

“Here we go,” he muttered.

* * *

Oliver wasn’t sure what he’d been planning to do, when he’d left the recovery room to face everyone. It had been a long, long day, an even longer forty-odd hours, and a part of him just wanted to be at home with the rest of his family.

But there was something he had to do first, and he knew it was going to eat at him until he saw it through.

It was on a knife’s edge, this _thing_ , so close to coming down on one side of the line, and if it did — he wasn’t sure if it would ever piece itself back together, if things would ever go back to the way they were.

The doors slid open and he lifted his head.

In the split second before he moved, Oliver’s eyes keenly swept the room, like they were taking stock of threats — even if there were none. His sense of trust was unusually silent, especially after this, which unsettled him more than he could admit.

Everyone was accounted for, even Constantine, who was perpetually indulging his need for a cigarette. Diggle had fresh stitches on the cut beneath his eye and nodded at him, while Thea and Roy flanked Connor, who was sitting silently between them, radiating awareness of being caught in the act of something illicit. Cisco was chewing a pen at the computers, and beside him —

Barry turned in his chair, without a word.

Oliver noticed the heavy silence in the air, the wariness of everyone’s attention, but he was already moving. It was only a few short steps, and if Felicity could tell what he was about to do, she wasn’t fast enough to stop him.

Barry rose from his chair as Oliver approached.

“Look, man —”

Oliver punched him across the face, hard. It flipped him halfway around, and he slammed into the table with a heavy grunt. Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion, and even then, in a vacuum far, far away.

“ _Oliver!_ ” Felicity brushed past him to get to Barry, her face white with shock.

Almost everyone was on their feet, but with the exception of Cisco, most of them had the sense to know that getting in his way was a bad idea.

“Hey, _whoa_ , man…” Cisco said, a sentence that trailed off upon the realization that he was directly in Oliver’s face. He swallowed, his voice a pitch higher than usual. “Uh…”

Felicity’s interruption saved him from having to think of a defence. More shocked than intimidated, she turned Barry back around so she could see. “Are you okay?” she asked, removing his hand from his mouth. “God, you’re bleeding. _Oliver_.”

 _Handle this like an adult_ , she’d said.

This _was_ Oliver handling it like an adult. A team member dealing with a breach of trust. A friend who’d just realized he’d been betrayed. A father protecting his son. All of the above.

Barry wiped the blood from his split lip. “Don’t worry, Felicity, it’ll heal in a second,” he said, shooting Oliver a hard look over the back of his hand.

Oliver didn’t realize how angry he really was until he looked Barry in the eye. “Believe me, it’s taking every ounce of self-control I have not to open it up again,” he returned, with enough venom to surprise even himself.

His tone made everyone else wince, but Barry’s jaw just hardened, a reminder that he could be just as stubborn as Oliver when it came to disagreements. “Maybe I deserved that — for lying to you — but it still doesn’t change the fact that you need to hear me out,” he answered.

“I’m not listening to a goddamn word that comes out of your mouth, you —”

There was a small scuffle on Connor’s side of the room. Roy was evidently trying to pin him into his seat using both hands. “You’ve done enough for one day,” he muttered, with a warning shake of his head.

Connor pushed the restraining hands away and leapt to his feet. “Dad, it’s not uncle Barry’s fault,” he said.

Oliver interrupted him with a glare, one hand upraised to stop his son mid-sentence. “I will deal with you later, right now —”

“ _Dad_.”

Oliver hit Barry again, hard enough that he crashed into the table for the second time. It was utterly satisfying, feeling the solid impact of something beneath his knuckles, and in one blinding flash of impulse, Oliver didn’t regret a single thing. Consequentially, Felicity and Diggle were both in the fray now, separating them on both sides. Diggle had both hands on Oliver’s shoulders, Felicity pushing Barry back.

Barry spat out the blood in his mouth. “Let him hit me — maybe once he splits his hand open, he’ll finally hear what someone else has to say.”

Felicity gave him a warning look. “Don’t make this any worse.”

Connor jumped up from behind Roy, who was still holding him back. “Look, dad, he saved my life.”

“How? By letting you go out on the streets at night, risking your neck — for what? So you can prove a point? Were you that angry with me, Barry? That you had to drag my son into this?”

“I didn’t _drag_ him into anything,” Barry said furiously. “He makes his own choices.”

Oliver’s temper — already dangerously hot — spiked another few degrees at the simple fact that Barry didn’t seem to understand what he’d done. What he’d broken.

“He’s my _son_ , Barry!” he shouted, and Felicity winced, because she hated to hear his raised voice. “How would you feel if I took Henry and put him in his own speedster suit and threw him out into the streets?”

“ _Hey_.” Connor’s face was stark white, his eyes blazing. “That’s _not what happened_. He figured it out, okay? I got myself into trouble down by the docks one night. I thought I was just busting up a carjacker ring, but it turned out that the Santini family was running the show. If uncle Barry hadn’t shown up, I’d have ten new bullet holes instead of my SAT scores. I’m the one you need to yell at — not him. Everyone, uncle Barry, uncle Cisco, aunt Caitlin, they were just trying to keep me alive.”

He looked between Cisco and Barry, and Oliver could see the guilt on his face. “I’m sorry.”

It was very quiet.

“Ollie,” Thea said, breaking the silence. “This isn’t the way we handle things.”

Oliver didn’t answer at first. He breathed in, breathed out. Calmed himself a little, and nodded. “We will talk later. Right now —”

“—yeah,” Barry said shortly, and Oliver’s eyes flickered up to his face.

“If everyone could give us a minute.” The words barely made it past his teeth.

“So you can kill each other without us getting in the way?” Diggle said, with a short laugh. “Not a chance, brother.”

“We’re just going to talk — I think Barry and I are long overdue for that.” Oliver managed to force it out as a question. “Please.”

Felicity looked at Oliver without speaking, and for a moment, he thought she was going to refuse.

“I absolutely agree,” she said, very carefully. “But that doesn’t mean punching someone in the teeth.”

Oliver and Barry both acquiesced under her implied conditions, in their own ways. The latter inclined his head, muttering a promise. Oliver nodded, and Felicity touched Diggle’s arm, which was still imposing its own restraint on his movements.

Knowing signs of a fight as well as he did, Diggle didn’t let Oliver go immediately — making full use of his superior strength, as Felicity well knew — until he relaxed his arms in a sign of pacification. Diggle gave Oliver a look. “You good?” he asked.

Oliver nodded. Curtly. He looked down at his feet, regaining his temper piece by piece. Then he looked at Felicity. “Could you please stay with Tommy? Make sure he’s okay? Please.”

Felicity didn’t say anything, but she reached out and squeezed his hand. Holding him steady for a second more, she turned back and stood on her toes to hug Barry. “Thank you for your help tonight,” she said, a hand gently on his face. “Thank you for helping get our son back.”

Barry nodded, managing a small smile and a pat on the back. “Anytime.”

They all filed away, leaving Oliver and Barry alone.

* * *

“Are you going to say something?” Barry asked, after the longest silence.

Oliver only looked at him. “I’m thinking,” he said, his voice hoarse as though from disuse. “The whole summer, with Connor interning at the CCPD crime lab, all those nights he wasn’t answering his phone, the taekwondo injuries…you were helping him cover up what he was doing. You. And Cisco. And Caitlin.” He let the names bounce off the wall like sharp stones, and took a twisted sense of pride in the fact that Barry winced.

Barry inhaled, straightening up as he did. “That’s right. It started three months ago. We’d been hearing reports around the police station, from the guys being brought in. They said someone in a hood was taking down low-level criminals in the city, outrunning beat cops and leaving the lowlifes zip-tied on the ground for them to pick up. I thought it was impossible — I mean — what were the chances, right? So I kept an eye on the scanners until I heard something happening down at the docks. And the rest…you already know.”

“No I don’t.” Oliver folded his arms, determined not to let things slide, not where this was concerned. “I _don’t_ know, Barry. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“The Santinis would have killed him, _trust_ —” Barry bit the inside of his cheek from the poor choice of words, still reflexive, and continued as though nothing had happened. “They would have killed him,” he said, softer. “It was ten to one, and they all had guns. I helped him out, and after that — the cat was out of the bag. You should have seen Connor when he first came in here. He had his own tech from home, he’d stripped down and rewired a police radio to pick up encrypted frequencies. He actually _hacked_ police records to look into the guys he was taking down first. He even had his own bow and arrows. Sports store stuff, but…we changed that.”

“Really.” Oliver’s sarcasm was biting. “Let me guess. You fitted him out with his own suit. Kevlar bi-weave. Reinforced mesh armoring. Probably working your way up to a mask at some point, right? Greasepaint’s a poor identity concealer. He’ll need a mask that doesn’t affect his ability to aim while he’s on the run, but there’s a compressible micro-fabric for that. It could be — what was the word you used?” He turned around, facing the empty space behind the glass case, where Barry’s suit should have been. “ _Great_.”

Barry acknowledged the hit for what it was — a sardonic rehash of the first conversation they’d ever had about Oliver’s gear. The fact that the first mask he’d ever worn had been a gift from Barry.

Before the lightning made him… _more_.

Oliver shut his eyes at the unwelcome recollection of the grinning boy — the _kid_ — Barry Allen had been ten years ago, just a CSI from an ordinary Midwest city, wearing his heart on his sleeve, his unabashed fascination with the extraordinary out for all to see. Because they’d changed since then, and Oliver wasn’t sure if that part of Barry was enough — not anymore.

“So,” he continued, succinctly. “You were helping him endanger his life.”

“Be a vigilante,” Barry corrected. “Like you.”

The equivocation was enough to make Oliver’s temper flare again. “I was a hell of a lot older than Connor is now,” he said heatedly. “So if that’s your only excuse you’d better find a new one, _fast_. But that’s what you do best, isn’t it?”

Oliver managed a humorless laugh, shaking his head at the far wall. “I was an idiot for thinking you’d actually changed. But you’re still the same Barry Allen from six months ago — always running headfirst without thinking. It happened in Kaznia, it happened the _second_ you decided to help Connor without telling me, and it’ll happen again. Because you’re the Flash. You can do whatever you goddamn want, because no one runs as fast as you. Let me tell you something, Barry, just because you got hit by a bolt of lightning, it doesn’t give you the _right_ to keep a secret like this from me!”

“I wanted to tell you, Oliver. I did. But we weren’t — we hadn’t seen each other since Kaznia, and Connor…I had him right where you’re standing now and the phone was in my hand.” Barry’s voice was shaking, the words coming faster than he could manage them. “You were a phone call away, but Connor said he wasn’t going to stop what he was doing, even if I told you. Worst case scenario, he’d get grounded for a while, but you’d still be in Starling City running for mayor, and it’d just be him and his mom, and there was no way she could keep an eye on him while she was at work. He said he’d find a way to keep helping, and I believed him. I still do.”

Oliver let the pause stretch on, just in case Barry couldn’t hear the utter _lapse_ in logic that supposedly justified what he’d done.

“So naturally, you thought the best thing would be to prepare my son for war with the city’s worst criminals on a nightly basis. That sounds like a _very_ justifiable progression of logic, Barry. Really.”

Barry shook his head. “Oliver, you may not believe me when I say this, but I know you, better than you think. I told you Connor was more like you than you realized, and I wasn’t lying. I’ve seen the way he fights — the way he thinks — he’s… _you_. But with more hormones, and stubborn, and… _good_. Saving the city, helping people, it’s in his blood. Even if some mob boss knocked him down, he’d just fight his way back up. There was no way he’d sit this one out, and I thought — if I couldn’t stop him, the least I could do was…keep him alive.”

 _And I did_ , seemed to be the unsaid end to that sentence.

“And you’ve discharged that obligation,” Oliver said. “So what you’re saying is: I should be thanking you.”

“I didn’t do this because I thought you’d thank me. God, you think I didn’t know you’d be pissed? But for real — if I’d told you, the first thing you would have done was gone nuclear on him. And if he’s anything like you — which he is — it wouldn’t have worked. It never does.”

“That’s not your call to make, Barry,” Oliver said, soft with incredulity. “He’s my son. I’m protecting him. I made a choice _not_ to involve him in the Justice League, and you spit on that choice when you encouraged him to endanger his life. And you lied about it — to my face.”

“What about Connor?” Barry asked. “Did you ever think that I was trying to respect what he would have wanted — as much as you? He wanted to fight, you wanted him safe. I did both.”

“What about me, Barry?” Oliver asked, raising his voice. “What about our friendship? Your first loyalty should have been to _me!_ ”

“Because that’s all I’ll ever be, right? Someone who does as he’s told. Good little Flash, running where the Green Arrow tells him to go. I saw a situation, and I made a choice between two extremes, just like Connor made his choice. But you’ve always had a problem respecting decisions unless they’re yours.”

“ _Respect?_ ” Oliver repeated. “God, Barry, do you honestly think you can throw the word _respect_ in my face, after what you’ve just done? Of course you do, because I was completely wrong to second-guess your choices. You said that since you couldn’t stop Connor, and because involving me would have made it worse, the _least_ you could do was keep him alive. Paint the picture however you want, but I remember why we weren’t speaking after Kaznia. Can you honestly tell me that what you decided to do with my son — it wasn’t because a small part of you wanted to prove me wrong?”

Barry’s eyes jumped to Oliver’s face, and he knew he’d hit the mark. That — in one instant — was all the truth he needed, but credit where credit was due, Barry still had the honor to say it out loud.

“Maybe I did,” he admitted. “At first. But I want you to know, I never…I would _never_ have hurt Connor, or you. It was never about that.”

“I see.”

The two of them were breathing hard, as if they’d just shouted in each other’s faces, even though they were on opposite sides of the room. Tempers flared, hurt prides…maybe that was all it had ever been. A ticking time bomb of two very different personalities, two very different beliefs.

Too impossible, even for the man whose existence defied the boundaries of the known possibilities.

“I’m waiting for you to say something — to give me _one_ reason, just _one_ , why I should ever trust you again,” Oliver said, and for an instant, he genuinely wanted an answer.

Because at the end of the day, a part of him still wanted to be able to come back from this. One of his closest friendships, one of the most important to him.

Oliver waited at first, until he realized that whatever the answer was — it didn’t matter. He already had the one that counted, actions, rather than words, and it was enough — _too much_ — to put things on the other side of the line.

He shut his eyes, opened them again. “Enough,” he said to himself. “God. _Enough_.”

For a second, he thought that he wouldn’t be able to move. But it was easy to turn away, even easier to find his footing. And he did. One step. Another. The same deliberate pace, walking towards the way out.

“Oliver.” Barry sounded tired. “Where are you going?”

Oliver didn’t turn back, but he did stop at the doors, a hand braced on the wall. “As of this moment,” he said, in a dull voice. “You and I — are done.”

Barry was silent, staring at the ground between his knees. The only sign of acknowledgment that he’d been heard was the slight dip of Barry’s neck, as though he wanted to lower his head into his hands.

Oliver stepped inside the elevator and pressed a button, staring straight ahead. “Was it worth it?” he asked.

The doors closed — quietly, smoothly — on Barry’s answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. Feels good to get that off my chest. Also, I legit forgot about Nyssa's offer to train Connor in the last story until a helpful reader pointed that out to me in a PM. Thank you!!! (I'm very very forgetful, so everyone feel free to remind me about things I might have missed)  
> Until the next update :)


	23. Trial Separation

“Careful,” Felicity said, eyeing the gravel driveway like it was the first time she’d seen the danger of having loose debris for a front yard. “Slow down. Careful — _careful_ —”

Oliver, currently in the process of playing piggyback chauffeur to a giddy six-year-old, gave said six-year-old a small bounce. “Do you want me to be careful?” he asked, and Tommy giggled, in the rare position of being able to enjoy a first-class seat without competition from his other half.

Felicity reached past them to get the front door open, doing her best at the beady-eyed disapproval. “Don’t make me use my superpower on you.”

“What can you do to daddy with Wi-Fi?” Tommy asked, blinking curiously at her.

“A stack of family albums and a _load_ of bad high school photos,” Felicity answered, in her breathy dramatic voice. “Your dad’s gonna _rue_ the day he ever decided to be funny.”

They were in the open doorway, but Oliver took a second to indulge, leaning over for a kiss. “I only learn from the best.”

Tommy eyed them speculatively from his elevated perch, his semi-autographed cast resting at the top of Oliver’s head. “Hazel says you kiss too much. _I_ think she’s just embarrassed because she tried to kiss Henry, and he ran away.”

Felicity found that both adorable and not at all hard to believe, but a shadow passed briefly over Oliver’s face at the mention of Henry, and by extension, his super-fast parent. Ever astute at evasive maneuvers, he busied himself with getting the bags one-handedly, studiously avoiding eye contact.

Which wasn’t a no-good sign, at all. “Well,” Felicity said. “You will _just_ have to explain to your sister that it’s something grown-ups do when they really like each other. You also shouldn’t go around kissing random people — or things. Stuffed animals are fine, but only after they’ve been in the laundry. Pillows are okay too. Also, stick to faces. And only if they say yes. What…else.”

The ORACLE-run security interface saved her from having to answer immediately, and while she studied the profile scans and threat assessments, she mentally reviewed the unexpected lesson on consent and acceptable ways of expressing affection to friends and strangers. Not to mention (how did that happen?) inanimate objects.

Tommy screwed up his face, thinking. “But daddy kisses you all the time. You were cooking and he kissed your ear. You kiss daddy’s shoulder, and he —”

“ _You_ ,” Felicity interrupted, “will understand when you’re a little older. Though hopefully never. Maybe sometime. More _never_ — never is good.”

She swore Oliver snorted a little, though he hid it in a small cough. “I think it’s safe to get everyone out of the bunker,” he said. “We should give your mom and Quentin a break.”

“They’re in the _bunker_?” Tommy breathed, sounding envious.

Felicity stepped around the bare patch of floorboards where the stained rug used to be, glad to see the paint hadn’t made it to the floorboards. Raisa was _way_ too good at preserving the house to let a graffitied piece of carpeting stay where it was, and the dark wood shone from a recent (and ostentatious) polish job.

The hidden elevator was already in motion by the time they got up to the study, and as soon as the doors parted, they were met with three adults and a child, being held back like an edgy racehorse. “Oh baby girl, you’re back!” Donna said, flinging out her arms for a hug.

The action simultaneously released her granddaughter from restraint, and Hazel _went_ for it. Her feet went from pounding steel to wooden floorboards, and she collided straight into Oliver’s legs.

“Careful, Tommy’s a little sore,” Felicity warned, while Hazel swarmed at them like a puppy trying to reach a treat. “Play nice, okay?”

Hazel nodded vigorously. “Promise,” she said scratchily, her eyes pinked and face splotched from crying.

Oliver bent to let Tommy slide (carefully) from his back, and the latter looked hesitant on his way down, even fidgeting after he straightened up on his two feet.

“Um,” he said.

Eyebrows drawn together in a fierce glare, Hazel clapped both hands to his face and gave his cheeks a pull, as if she was making sure he was real. “Green?” she asked, inexplicably.

Tommy beamed, or Felicity guessed, based on the cheek-stretch. “Monster,” he said, in a concurring tone, and Hazel grinned.

“It’s Tommy,” she declared, and proceeded to tackle him in a head-ruffling hug while their parents turned (exhaustedly) to the grandparents.

“It was like that the _whole_ time,” Donna explained, hugging Felicity tight. “We’d be playing Twister and she’d start crying because I didn’t know her and Tommy Tater’s language. Like — what does _arkybark_ even _mean_? Oh — baby — what happened to your throat? Looks like someone got a little carried away with the breath pl—”

Felicity muffled the rest of the sure-to-be-inappropriate observation with a curl of Donna’s hair. “Thanks so much for staying with Hazel,” she said. “I know it’s been…a weird couple of days.”

“You got a TV in the bunker, that’s all anybody really needs.” Quentin patted Oliver on the arm. “Turns out, Raisa plays a mean hand of cards. Between her and Donna, I’m not sure which one has the better poker face.”

“St Petersburg and Las Vegas — not so different,” Raisa said modestly, and Oliver didn’t look in the least bit surprised, like he’d been on the receiving end of said poker lessons at some point in his childhood (interesting area to data-mine, at least from Felicity’s perspective).

“Good to have everyone back.” Quentin eyed Tommy’s cast with worry. “His hand, it’s —”

“Dislocated thumb,” Oliver said, with his usual level of elaboration. “Long story.”

Quentin shook his head. “That son of a bitch. But now that the police can get involved, are you all safe in the mansion? I mean —” He gestured at the three large (and very antique) windows in the study. “It’s not exactly equipped to withstand heavy fire. You can’t camp out in the bunker forever. Let’s all head down to the station, and I can get you into a safe house by tonight.”

“We’ve stepped up the security protocols,” Felicity said. “It was an oversight, but I’ve got ORACLE covering the whole house. _Believe_ me, anyone not in ORACLE’s security profile is going to regret not calling first.”

Oliver nodded grimly, and Donna gasped, as though gripped by a horrifying thought. “You mean a _trapdoor_?”

* * *

Oliver thumbed a smear of pink children’s toothpaste from the bathroom mirror, only belatedly making the discovery that some had found its way onto his right ear. Felicity was having a well-deserved shower, and he’d volunteered to supervise the twins in the pre-bedtime routine. The bathroom was just across the hall from the nursery, smaller but more snug than some of the other rooms in the mansion. After a childhood of sleepovers with his best friend, Oliver knew every nick in the black-and-white tiles, the exact place where they used to doodle rude messages onto the mirror, and the nook where they’d hidden a cache of secret cookies from the pantry. It was strangely reassuring to know that thirty or so years on, the bathroom would continue to bear witness to toothpaste fights between six-year-olds in their pajamas.

The sink was still running, washing goops of unused strawberry toothpaste down the drain. While a few misfires were relatively standard during the nightly teeth-brushing, the amount of mess had increased exponentially due to the (probably unwise) decision he’d made to let Hazel help her partially immobilized brother.

The heath and safety restrictions put in place because of Tommy’s injury had lasted about as long as it took for him to change out of his grimy clothes, and by dinner time, the twins were back to their usual antics — an unpredictable relationship that went from being bitter enemies to best friends, seemingly at random.

“ _Yow_ ,” Tommy said in protest, pinkish froth around his mouth. “Dad, she poked me.”

Hazel’s brow was creased in a furious frown, and she squeezed a gumball-sized dollop of toothpaste onto her brother’s red toothbrush. “I didn’t!” she retorted. “It’s his fault ‘cuz his teeth are weird.”

“Hazel —”

“ _Stay_ ,” she said, a maniacal glint in her eye as she advanced with her weapon.

Tommy gagged, and Oliver hastily removed the toothbrush before Hazel made him swallow it.

“All right?” he asked, rubbing Tommy’s back. “Spit everything into the sink and gargle some water.”

Hazel dived for the plastic cups. “I can help!”

“ _No_ ,” Oliver said, catching her with one arm. “We are going to get your teeth clean, and then bed.”

Hazel grudgingly allowed herself to be scooped up and held at observation distance. “S’just trying to help,” she mumbled, taking the green toothbrush Oliver handed her.

Oliver kissed her messy bright hair. “I know, sweetheart, and daddy loves you all the more for it.”

That seemed to settle the matter, and Hazel unprotestingly went through the motions of cleaning her teeth (Felicity’s influence, despite her choosing not to become a dental hygienist) while Oliver straightened out the general mess where he could.

“Missed a spot,” he said, wiping a bit of foam off Tommy’s chin. “Does your thumb hurt? You can have another spoon of medicine if you want it.”

Tommy cradled his cast absently. “It doesn’t hurt as bad as yesterday,” he said. “Aunt Cait held up some pictures of kids hurting like me and asked me to tell her which one I thought I was, and I chose the crying kid ‘cuz I wanted to cry. But uncle Barry was there, and he held my hand and made funny faces until aunt Cait put my thumb back. He told me Henry still cries ‘cuz he’s scared of needles, but I was as brave as you ‘cuz you got hurt even worse and you didn’t cry either.” He blinked owlishly at Oliver. “Did you want to cry too?”

Oliver found himself at a loss for words, both at the sudden mention of Barry and the consequential reminder of what he’d left behind in Central City.

Everything of the night before was like a mass of fractured, twisted pieces — an unrecognizable distortion of what used to be something of pride — but instead of cleaning up the mess, he’d just swept it out of the way. Now it was like the curtain had been wrenched back, a spotlight trained on the jagged fragments, and a part of him still couldn’t bear the shame of what it had been reduced to.

What Hazel did next was even more surprising. Toothbrush clutched in her left fist, she reached up with her right hand to touch his cheek, oblivious to the two crescents of foam around her lips. “Why are you sad, daddy?” she asked.

Two pairs of wide eyes, identical stares pinning him where he stood. There was something very powerful about a child’s honesty, an utter lack of self-consciousness that came with complete trust, and especially after everything they’d been through over the past two days, the last thing Oliver wanted to do was lie to his children.

“Are you worried mommy’s gonna see all the toothpaste?” Tommy asked, matter-of-factly. He’d used his thumb to shape the smears into a crude smiley face. “I made it better.”

Carefully, Oliver lowered himself — along with Hazel — to sit at the edge of the bathtub. Tommy came over without needing to be asked, and Oliver helped him up so that they were all sitting together.

“Daddy…had to say goodbye to someone,” he said, choosing his words with care.

“But it makes you sad,” Tommy added.

Oliver blinked away the sudden sting in his eyes. “It does,” he admitted. “He was my friend for a long time.”

“So why can’t you be friends again?” he asked, innocent but determined. “That’s what you told me when Gary lost my book.”

“Because grown-ups don’t always fight over things like that. Sometimes it’s not because of anything. Sometimes they just need to stop seeing each other for a while. It’s sad, but it’s for the best. Otherwise people get hurt.”

Hazel had been unusually quiet, but instead of contributing her two cents to the conversation, she tucked her head beneath Oliver’s jaw, her arms around his neck. “It’s okay, daddy,” she whispered. “You still have us.”

* * *

The shower stopped running a while after the twins had surrendered to sleep, looking very tiny in the vast master bed. Oliver carefully returned a stray foot back onto the mattress and tucked it into the duvet, replacing stuffed toys that had fallen out of place, checking foreheads like he didn’t know what else to do with himself.

He truly — honestly — didn’t. The room was a dim buttery yellow, the only light source a lamp on the nightstand. His fingertips buzzed with nervous energy, and he felt like he could have been pacing downstairs, trying to outrun the thoughts gnawing at the inside of his skull.

He heard a gentle rasp from inside the bathroom, the shower curtain being drawn aside. Silence, though he could see in his mind’s eye Felicity tiptoeing onto the towel by the bathtub, water sliding from the ends of her hair and goosebumps on her skin as she reached for the big towel always hanging at the back of the door.

Oliver let his hand rest on the door handle, still not entirely sure what he meant to do — if it was the right time, or the place. He must have pressed without thinking, because a rush of moist, steamy air slipped out to caress his forearm.

The door was unlocked.

Felicity was in front of the mirror, wrapped in a towel, massaging cream into her neck. The bruises were a reddish pink around her throat, and he saw her frown slightly as her fingers spread to cover the marks. It was a private moment he was witnessing, but far from vulnerable all the same, because Oliver knew Felicity’s expressions, and this was a lesson she took to heart, a promise not to repeat herself.

Still far away, she gave her head a little shake and reached for more, smoothing it from wrist to elbow to shoulder with slow, meticulous grace.

Gradually, silently, she raised her eyes and their gazes aligned in the mirror, a slight stir that both of them had to have felt — somewhere, latent.

Neither of them said a word. Oliver’s shirt was sticking to his skin from the steam, and he didn’t want to think. All he knew was the sultry scent on her hands, her neck, the soft shadows under her clavicle, sweeping lower still. When she turned, the folds of the towel parted slightly along the knee — a tantalizing strip of bare skin — and they faced each other.

The door locked with a surprisingly loud snap. She was braced against the counter, even before he’d crossed the floor to pick her up. They were flush against each other for an electric second, and then she was easing herself onto the marble, smiling like they were both in on the secret.

Oliver was careful, tracking kisses from the base of her throat to behind her ear. She shivered from his breath on her skin, curving into him, her face pressed to the side of his neck. The marks were there — but they both knew there was a power in reclaiming scars, an intimacy in changing something fearful into something fierce.

But Slade wasn’t on their minds, not then.

Oliver’s shirt dropped to the floor, his belt buckle clicking softly on the tiles. Felicity drew her legs up towards her chest and slid back towards the mirror, both her ankles still encircled in his grasp. It was a tracing exercise of sorts, a game delaying the inevitable, and he took his time following the trail. The backs of his hands traced the silky curves of her bare legs, ankle — calf — knee…

The towel felt impossibly coarse in comparison to what it covered, and as his palms vanished into the folds, Felicity gave a hoarse gasp, clutching at the mirror behind her back. The glass was slippery with condensation, and her nails scored lines into the steam. Oliver breathed against her lips, forming a familiar sentence in a language they knew by heart.

It was made up of flitting impressions and quicksilver flashes of light, rough and smooth and _yes_ and _there_.

They were quiet, but their bodies seemed to groan when Oliver found his way inside her and began to push. She felt along the wall until a switch flicked, and the glaring light blinked into warm, humid darkness. But they had each other tight.

* * *

Felicity skimmed her fingertips across the steaming water, her chin resting on the edge of the tub. “Are you sure you’re not going to consider adding some rose petals?”

Oliver looked amused by the idea, though his response was his typical level of dry-to-the-point-of-being-taken-seriously. “The Lazarus Pit turned me off baths for good. This is the exception.”

Felicity flicked water at him, and he laughed, a sound from low in his throat. His hair was dark and spiky from being washed, slowly dripping water past his neck and shoulders where they showed above the waterline. They’d traded places since the bathroom shenanigans, with Oliver being the one at a comparative disadvantage. Said mischief had left her favorite towel on the floor and in an unusable state, which meant that Felicity was wearing her nice robe to keep him company, the long one that was all pale silk and flowing lines, channeling her (probably nonexistent) inner black-and-white movie star.

Though a part of her did question the point of a bath was, sans the foam and froth, she wasn’t going to file a complaint at the level of visibility in the water (fantastically clear, just in case anyone was interested)…even if her favorite thing to do was blow soap bubbles through her hands.

There was still a speck of shampoo behind Oliver’s ear, and Felicity shifted from her stool to sit behind him. “Missed a spot,” she murmured, and he closed his eyes obediently while she scooped handfuls of warm water to wash him clean.

His head was pleasantly heavy on her thigh, and even though the damp from his hair soaked into the silk, Felicity liked to have him there. It was rare after being married for so long (although the Diggles still lapped them by a mile) to find a moment when the intimacy could still be unexpected, and this was one of them.

As light and unbothered as he’d seemed in front of his children and in-laws, Felicity knew what Oliver-style repression looked like, and putting on a brave face to the world was the Queen family strength. But with his head tipped back and his eyes closed, she could see the evidence of how deeply the fight with Barry — and the revelation about Connor — had affected him. She could trace the new frown lines that hadn’t been there a day before, and the raw angry skin on his knuckles where he’d punched one of his closest friends — twice, hurting himself probably just as much as he’d hurt Barry.

Except he didn't heal in seconds.

Stirred by an impulse to smooth the hurts away, Felicity bent and kissed him between his eyebrows, making him smile.

“Did…I…ever…tell you the story about Mr. Square Bear?” she asked, rubbing her thumbs in slow circles behind his ears in a gentle massage.

He cracked one eye. “I don’t think so.”

“Huh,” she said innocently. “Weird. I used to have this plush toy, and I called him Mr. Square Bear, because his head was square and I had a four-year-old’s obsession with adorable rhyming nicknames. So anyway, I had a best friend — let’s call her Marcia — and one day I found out that she’d been borrowing Mr. Square Bear and taking him to the treehouse without me.”

“It’s the first time you’ve ever mentioned Marcia,” Oliver pointed out. “And you had a treehouse even though you’re scared of heights?”

“ _Details_ ,” Felicity said, splashing the tiled floor when she gave a breezy wave of her hand. “Anyway, I got _so_ mad at Marcia for borrowing Mr. Square Bear and we had a huge fight, and I kicked her out of the treehouse. Well, not _kicked_ , because that would have been dangerous. But I rolled up the ladder thingy and told her she wasn’t allowed to have any of my Mint Thins. _Huge_ thing — everyone in the neighborhood heard about it. You know what happened next?”

“In this blatantly true story about your Vegas childhood?”

That got him a mini-tsunami to the face.

“Turns out, Mr. Square Bear told Marcia that he _really_ wanted to go up in the treehouse, but because I was getting kinda iffy about heights, I wasn’t taking him up there as much as I used to. He said that he was going to try and climb up there himself if no one took him up, so Marcia thought she’d help him, because stuffed bears don’t do well when they fall from high places. Grizzly physics, plush aerodynamics, there’s a whole TED Talk about it — pun intended. Not that Marcia should have taken Mr. Square Bear without telling me, but if her toy…uh…Ms. Fuzzy Face the Kangaroo — wait, not a Kangaroo — Ms. Fuzzy Face the _Koala_ had told me the same thing, I probably would have done it too. I just got really mad at her because it was _my_ Mr. Square Bear, and she should have asked me first, whatever he told her. But eventually I realized that she was still my friend, _best_ friend, and —”

“— _Felicity_ —”

“— _and_ we made up. Then she moved to Prague and that’s why I’ve never mentioned her. The end. Thoughts?”

Oliver’s smile had faded, and he met her gaze now with unguarded frankness. “I told Barry that we’re done — from here on out. I can’t do it anymore.”

The words were like a lead-heavy stone, sinking to the pit of Felicity’s stomach, but she didn’t move away from her husband. “I guessed as much,” she admitted. “But tell me why.”

His tells were all in the physical, and he shifted his posture, rolling his shoulders like he was in actual discomfort before settling back against the side of the tub. “After Kaznia, now Connor…I’m done, Felicity. He didn’t just keep a secret about my son from me. He _knew_ we were going out of our minds looking for Tommy and he still went after a lead without telling us. Slade was there and if Connor had run into him alone —”

Oliver bit back the words, and his fist slapped the water in frustration. “I can’t trust him again, and he’s given me _every_ reason not to.”

“Oliver, you don’t just stop being friends with someone like that. It’s Barry we’re talking about.” Felicity stroked the sides of his stubbled jaw with her fingertips, her voice soft. “Remember Barry? He helped you stop the League of Assassins, he went to war beside you against Damien Darhk and HIVE. The two of you started the Justice League together, he was at our wedding…I’m not saying that what Barry did was okay, but friends do stupid things all the time. There’s a foundation of friendship here that _means_ something — still. You can’t just slam the door and walk away.”

“But I did, Felicity.” Oliver twisted around to look at her. “I don’t know how to come back from this, and I’m done trying. People like him don’t change, and if Connor was the second strike against him, I don’t want to wait around for the third.”

They stared at each other without speaking. Until —

“Are we going to fight about this?” he asked. Honest to a fault.

Felicity shook her head immediately. “No,” she said, reaching for his hand. “No, I don’t want to fight. I think this is something you need to figure out on your own, and I have every faith that you will — pinky-promise with cherries on top.”

Oliver’s fingers relaxed in her own, and he faced away again, holding her hand to his heartbeat. _Thud-thud_ against the lines in her palm, the soft ripple of water as the surface settled again, light reflecting off the smooth walls.

“I know,” she said softly. “That wasn’t right. I know Connor means the world to you, and you’ve only ever wanted to protect him from the crazy madhouse supervillain fun-times that is our reality. I _know_ it stings — that Barry didn’t tell you the truth, and I promise you that I’m on your team. But I don’t mean that in an _I’m-taking-sides_ way, I mean it in an _I-love-you_ way, if that makes sense.”

Oliver took her hand and pressed his lips to her palm, which she took to mean a _yes_.

“I understand why you’re mad at Barry — but I think you’re forgetting one thing. Your son is a Queen, and Queen DNA is one of _the_ most stubborn things in the history of ever. I’ve seen Connor when he steps out of the Watchtower elevators, and I’ve seen how badly he wants this. I’m not saying what Barry did was right, but maybe he was trying to protect Connor, in his own way. Connor wanted to pick up the bow and arrow, one way or another. If he hadn’t been caught out, he might have set up camp in some clock tower somewhere, and started his own vigilante shop between calculus homework. It may not be what you want to hear, but having Barry and STAR Labs behind him meant that he was that much safer, and I know for a fact that if Henry Joseph had been in the same situation with you — or baby Sara — you would have done the same thing.”

“Maybe,” Oliver said, his voice edged with hurt. “But we’ll never know. What I _do_ know is that Barry can’t be trusted to read people in, and his first instinct will _always_ be to try and fix the situation himself, damn whatever anyone else does to hell.”

“Going at it alone, the weight of the world on his shoulders,” she translated, tugging gently on his earlobe. “Sounds familiar to me.”

Oliver twisted his neck again, his jaw locked in an unhappy expression of being caught between divided loyalties, dual instincts tearing his insides to shreds. Felicity wanted so badly for everything to be okay, but she also knew there was a very human limitation to what intervention strategies could do, regardless of the superhuman status of the parties involved.

So she went on her knees and wrapped her arms around him from behind, careless of her sleeves dragging in the bathwater. “I love you, Oliver Queen. No matter what. Take as much time as you need — I’m always going to be on your team.”

Oliver leaned the side of his head on hers. “Thank you.”

“I have another question,” she said.

A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”

“Are you going to stay with the Justice League?”

“Yes.” Zero hesitation, like he’d known all along that she was going to ask him.

“Good,” she answered, a smile growing to match his. “Because we have work to do.”

The tension wasn’t quite gone from his shoulders and back, but it was as close as it was going to get for the time being. Without prompting, Felicity leaned down as Oliver let his head fall back, and gradually — brushing noses, foreheads,  _smiles_ , in this unplanned, upside-down caress — they found each other’s lips. Yin and yang, two puzzle pieces aligned. If there was uncertainty about the future, doubts about what might come their way, this was something that was never uncertain between them, and Felicity hoped Oliver took as much strength from it as she did.

It was a long time before Oliver spoke again, and when he did, he lifted her forearm to kiss the hollow of her wrist, pushing the soaked sleeve higher as he followed an invisible trail up her wet skin.

She laughed in spite of herself. “Oliver…”

“The only place I want you right now,” he said, in a very different voice, “is in this bathtub.”

“Are we trying to recreate the Biblical flood?”

“Not exactly the meaning of _Biblical_ I had in mind.”

Felicity’s eyelashes swept her cheeks when she shut her eyes, an instinctive response to Oliver reaching up to slide the glasses from her nose. “ _Heathen_ ,” she accused.

The answering kiss made her smile again. “Guilty — as — charged.”

Felicity’s involuntary yelp coincided with a small tidal wave of water sloshing over the sides of the marble tub, followed shortly by the sound of shared (and muffled) laughter that marked the end of the discussion.

For the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random Thoughts on 4x20   
>  \- Whaaaaaat. Even. Happened.  
> \- It was probably just me but I did not realize Lyla was being carted around in a moving truck. That's what I get for being on Tumblr so much during the episode.  
> \- Holy freaking shit Lyla is one badass human being. Why isn't she permanently on the team????!  
> \- Yayyyy no island flashbacks!!  
> \- Alex was and still remains sketchy AF. He's just popping evil vitamins now. I miss Roy.  
> \- Underground casino was perfect. Everything. *Dies*  
> \- Oliver did a British accent. HE DID A BRITISH ACCENT.  
> \- Do all magic users just tack on "love" at the end of their sentences, or did I mishear "amor" when Fortuna lady spoke?  
> \- That look into Oliver's mind was very cool. But also - he has had one SHITTY life. So. Much. Angst. Poor guy just needs a hug. And his engagement back on. But baby steps.  
> \- Baby Sara on a speeding motorcycle killed me. I'm a horrible human being for laughing.  
> \- Poor Diggle. Andy needed to die as soon as he pulled out that meat saw. But this is gonna take Diggle to some dark places. (Hopefully a story arc that doesn't get completely sidelined during the season?)  
> \- Ah, Brick's back. After Galavant Season 2, I can't take him seriously. That man is amazing, but I can't look at him without seeing Gareth.


	24. Impromptu Social Calls

Felicity hated running. Like, with a real, _insert-another-adjective-if-she-wasn’t-so-winded-from-running_ hatred.

The bayside jogging track and the fresh salt air could take a hike (pun not intended). They weren’t trying to keep up with a Special Forces war vet who could break concrete with his forehead.

Slight exaggeration, but still.

“Pause,” she wheezed, metaphorically skidding to a very real stop and bending forward, trying not to lose her breakfast. “ _Pause._ ”

Instead of stopping, Diggle had the nerve to jog a couple of paces in reverse, as though he was expecting her to start up again. “Come on, Felicity. We’re not even at the second mile yet.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Felicity’s lungs felt like they’d had a front row seat to an active barbecue, they were burning so badly. “God, I’m about to ralph. Is it bad if I puke into the bay?”

Diggle leaned over the railing to check. “Wouldn’t be the first,” he commented. “Oliver’s plan to clean up the bay area definitely wasn’t a shot in the dark.”

“I helped…with that.” Felicity dropped her voice to _man_ level, a fist to her breastbone as she uncurled from the half-slump. “Frack, I didn’t think this whole — fitness — thing through, did I?”

Diggle rubbed her back, though with a little less sympathy and a lot more amusement than she would have preferred. To add insult to (grievous) injury, he’d also carried their water bottles the whole way. “I thought Oliver whipped you into shape. Don’t you guys have a training session every week?”

Gulping water, Felicity put up two fingers, but not in the rude (British) way Constantine had shown her. She drained a third of the bottle before she unplugged, and wiped the back of her mouth with her hand. “Two weeks. And in his defence…” she said hoarsely. “I’m usually wearing yoga pants.”

Diggle shook his head. “ _Weak_.”

“Any chance you can take mercy on me and walk the rest of the way?” she asked, squinting up at him. “Unstructured chat time, catching up, the whole friendship _shebang_.”

Diggle eyed the _Queen 2022_ sweatshirt she had on, and did a quick three-sixty of the perimeter, as though conducting an analysis of just how ironically bad a candid shot could be for his best friend’s campaign. “If it means the paparazzi don’t get a shot of Mrs. Queen puking over the side of the railing, sure,” he concluded, somewhat resigned.

Felicity fist-pumped. “ _Win_.”

* * *

“I still can’t work out why he didn’t kill us,” Felicity said, cupping her throat. The fading bruises were hidden by the sweatshirt collar, but that didn’t make them any less _there_. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“It’s out of character,” Diggle concurred. “If being Oliver Queen’s partner was enough to get a sword to your jugular, being married to him should have gotten you killed.”

“ _Thanks_ ,” she said.

“Any time. Wilson’s a mercenary — maybe someone offered him a better price.”

“Maybe.” Felicity scratched the corner of her eyebrow, trying to fend off the headache that inevitably came with stepping mentally into a supervillain’s shoes. “Let’s add that to our list of problems, I guess.”

“Given the fact that I just let you off a three-mile run, it probably isn’t the best time to tell you this, but you know there was nothing wrong about the way you handled yourself against Slade Wilson, right?” Diggle said.

Felicity kicked a stone off the jogging track, trying not to smile at her friend being his usual level of chivalrous. He wasn’t wrong about why she was taking physical fitness a lot more seriously — not in the slightest. Facing up to Oliver’s old nemesis, after half a decade of fighting crime and more than a few lessons in self-defence, had gone poorly. To say the least.

“John, I got the stuffing thrown out of me, and _I_ was the one with the gun. I think it’s safe to say there’s something wrong with the way I handled myself. I need to channel more gun-toting badassery, less pasty computer geek.”

“Then you wouldn’t be Felicity,” he said evenly. “Not that anyone would complain if you started to outshoot us, but you’re already one of the most badass women on the planet, Glock or no Glock.”

John Diggle had a way of delivering unbelievably kind compliments like they were the barest statements of fact, and the no-nonsense tone he used made it very hard to class them under the heading of empty flattery. It served to reinforce the point that he only said things he meant, and Felicity was touched.

“Hey, I offered to teach you how to code,” she teased. “But you’d put me out of a job.”

Diggle put a massive arm around her shoulders and gave her a shake. “Told you before, Felicity — you’re irreplaceable. Don’t make me say it again.”

They laughed, two friends enjoying a leisurely stroll along the bay area. Felicity dawdled by the gleaming rails, leaning her elbows on the bar and peering at the gleaming cityscape soaring across the water. Diggle joined her, eyes closed, his broad chest swelling as he inhaled the smell of the sea. “How’s he holding up?” he asked, keeping them shut.

It was a mark of friendly intuition, probably the gravity of the situation, that made asking about the _he_ completely unnecessary. “He’s staying in the Justice League. But he’s not budging over Barry. We had a talk.”

Diggle grunted his approval. “Can’t say I blame him. Oliver may shoot arrows at his family but he doesn’t punch his friends.” A pause, and he reconsidered the accuracy of the statement. “Not like that.”

“Barry’s lucky Oliver didn’t decide to test out the new retina-frying arrowheads on him,” Felicity said, and she wasn’t using hyperbole. “I’ve never seen him so angry.”

“Or torn up,” Diggle added. “This thing with Barry really hit him where it hurts. What about Connor? Is he —?”

“They’re at a temporary ceasefire,” she answered. “No mini-arrow-ing until he comes over this weekend and they have their big talk.”

Diggle whistled. “Where should I hide his arrows?”

“Might need you to referee,” she agreed. “But hopefully not.”

“So Oliver’s not leaving, and neither is Barry, but we’re all going to hold our breaths and hope no one notices that the Justice League’s going through a rough patch.” He snorted, derisive at the prospect. “Sounds like something a crappy marriage counsellor would charge three hundred bucks for.”

Felicity arched an eyebrow, well aware of his first attempt at being married to Lyla Michaels. “Speaking from personal experience, John?”

“It was two hundred,” he said. “And I don’t like lying.”

“Neither do I. But you know why.”

Diggle passed a hand over his face, a tellingly weary gesture. “I don’t make a habit of remembering Amanda Waller sayings, but Lyla has one she likes to use — the line about warlords and power vacuums.”

“Usually after ARGUS made it happen.”

“Probably. Amanda doesn’t strike me as the type to watch from the sidelines when there’s blood in the water.” Diggle’s expression turned dark at the mention of the old spy organization, a not-insignificant contributor to their present-day troubles. “When a warlord dies, someone always rushes in to fill the gap left behind. We’re the warlords, Felicity. We pushed HIVE off the top and called it _safe_ , but at the end of the day — if we fall, there’s no telling what might come crawling out to take our place.”

 _Ouch_. Felicity puffed out her cheeks, the rising breeze teasing the loose hairs at her temples. “Wow, I forgot what a downer you could be without me. Thank god you and Oliver are too busy raising children to brood all the time.”

“Oh, we still get together every once in a while,” Diggle deadpanned. “Marathon brooding, over some good old Tennessee whiskey.”

Felicity’s smile evaporated as she turned back to face the bay. Brooding was more than a little contagious, and the exact subject matter of Diggle’s worries were not new to her in the least.

Even if it wasn’t technically a fight (that would imply actual _interaction_ between the two involved), a rift between Oliver and Barry was more than two friends walking away from each other. What happened with Connor was an illustration of the Justice League’s divided loyalties — unspoken, but fiercely defiant. Cisco and Caitlin had chosen Barry over Oliver, and Felicity couldn’t think of a world where Diggle, Thea or Roy wouldn’t do the reverse. Even if they’d all come together under the same purpose, to fight the good fight, they were also loyal above all else, and that in itself was dangerous. Especially if the people involved had proven time and time again that their actions could change the course of history.

She didn’t want to say it out loud, but if push came to shove and the crack became a yawning divide, she knew who would choose whom. Green Arrow and the Flash. Starling and Central City. Oliver Queen and Barry Allen. The organization would fracture, and the last thing she wanted — with the world’s eyes on them — was for everyone to split apart.

Of all the people they’d encountered, Amanda Waller — true to her morally dubious worldview — had said it best. The dynamics of power never changed, and wolves were good at scenting blood. If the Justice League fell, there was no way of predicting who — or _what_ — wouldn’t try to take advantage of that.

“What I wouldn’t give for some wolf repellent,” she muttered to herself.

Diggle tapped her on the shoulder, using his chin to indicate something. “Speaking of. On your left.”

Felicity almost didn’t want to know who he meant. But she did, and — no joke — she gave a huge mental sigh. “Should have kept running.”

Lex Luthor raised his hand in a casual wave, the kind that overpaid PR managers made the rich and famous rehearse to the last micro-movement, pushing a pair of expensive shades into his hair with the other. “Mrs. Queen. Fancy running into you here,” he called. “Do you have a minute?”

* * *

Diggle’s arms were always a formidable sight, but even more so when they were crossed forbiddingly across his chest. There was an untouched cup of Starbucks coffee beside his elbow, identical to the cup Felicity had between her hands untouched, and the one Lex currently sipped. It was privately amusing to see the twelve feet of distance between them and Diggle, despite the fact that he hadn’t been Felicity’s bodyguard for a long, long time.

The stitches from Diggle's encounter with Slade were still prominent, and Lex stared at them with fascination, drumming his fingertips jerkily on the corresponding spot underneath his eye. " _Ouch._ If that's what happened to you, I do _not_ want to know what the other guy looks like."

The remark pinged off of Diggle's body armor without much of a response, but Lex seemed content to let it slide. Oblivious to the silent contempt surrounding Diggle like an aura, Lex _ah_ -ed in satisfaction, coffee commercial-style. “Sometimes I miss being able to go for a jog without the private security,” he said. “But dad preferred to go without the insurance hassle. _My son’s been kidnapped_ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?”

Felicity’s grip tightened around the cup, so suddenly that the plastic lid creaked. She didn’t dare move her hands now, because they had to be shaking. But not with fear — god, nothing was further from the truth.

Because if she thought for a second that Lex was making a thinly veiled reference to what happened with her son —

She would dismantle his precious LexCorp like a sub-par prototype and turn it into scrap.

“Actually,” she said, sounding very little like herself to those who actually knew her. “John’s a good friend.”

“ _Right_.” Lex flicked his own forehead. “My bad. Spartan. Oracle. Arrow. Jeez, these code names…I guess they’re code for a reason, huh?”

Felicity made a non-committal noise. “Not to be rude,” (although she very much intended to be) “but is there a particular reason why I’m running into you by the bay, Lex?”

“Well as it so happens, I called your assistant yesterday to pencil in a meeting, but he said you were out of town. Just as well — I find myself in need of your special expertise, and I’d rather not be overheard.”

Felicity was taken aback. Partially because she thought the Luthor approach to problem-solving was an indecent amount of money and high-class strong-arming.

“Really?” she said. “With what?”

“I’m being hacked.”

Going by tone of voice alone, he might have been commenting on the taste of his coffee, or an interestingly shaped cloud in the sky. _I’m being hacked_.

“Should you be telling me this?” Felicity asked, imagining the army of LexCorp attorneys and their formidable track record in litigation. “I can’t imagine being of much help to a rival CEO.”

Lex laughed. It was a reedy sound, simultaneously hiding and giving away too much. “Rival? Please, Felicity. We’re friends. I also thought I’d enlist the skills of the world’s most formidable computer genius to help me figure it out, and I seem to recall your CV starting out with a lot of hacking.”

Before Felicity could put together an answer, he’d tossed her a tiny flash drive, which she caught out of instinct. “Took me ages to finally figure out there was a bug in the system, and that was _after_ I had my IT team do some sweeps. It’s a Trojan without the horse, the Orwellian dream minus the complete lack of subtlety. It’s a very good hack, and I’d like you to help me find out who did it. I have some very big secrets on my server, and I’d rather not see them published on WikiLeaks.”

Turning the flash drive over in her hands, Felicity already knew what was on it. With the amount of security that would have ring-fenced most hackers out, there were only a finite number of individuals who could have gotten by the LexCorp firewalls.

And two of them were meant to be signing a joint venture deal with Lex’s company.

If this was a test, Felicity’s suspicions made sure she presented a placid expression to Lex. Bruce would have been proud.

“I’ll take a look,” she said lightly.

A smile spread slowly on Lex’s face. “You’re one of the good ones, Ms. Oracle,” he said, and motioned for his team of private security to start the waiting car. “Sorry to interrupt your morning jog.”

“Not at all. Good to see you.”

“And you,” he returned, wielding courtesy like he meant contempt.

Lex stopped with one foot in the car, and leaned over the door to speak to her. “I very much enjoyed the Justice Day gala, Felicity. Especially the company. Give my regards to the CSI, would you? Central City’s so nice this time of year.”

Felicity waved as the car pulled away, and Diggle walked over. “Every time,” she muttered. “There’s something about him that _repels_ trust.”

“What was _that_ about?”

The silver flash drive caught the light as she dropped it into the cup of untouched coffee. It sank past the foam with a small _plop_ , like an inconsequential pebble lost in a pond. “No idea,” she said honestly. “But we need to move on Waller.”

A further sign of his intense dislike towards Luthor — Diggle didn’t look in the least bit disapproving at the impromptu tech destruction, even taking into account Felicity’s deep and abiding love for all things digital. “When?”

“Tonight.”

“How?”

“Constantine.”

Diggle smirked. “Count me in.”

* * *

Amanda had no patience for slowness, and there was something about the general caliber of people who chose to stake out their profession in the more dubious areas of the law, but they had a tendency to be dull, if not dead, and most certainly — _stupid_.

“Minister,” she said, drumming her fingernails on her glass desktop. “If you don’t send a team out to inspect the crater site within twenty-four hours, I assure you I have no qualms against sending a team across the Bialyan border to do it for me — your _precarious_ diplomatic situation notwithstanding — and they _will_ get to keep what they find. Am I understood?”

Her counterpart began to splutter. “But the gold —”

“I see I have your attention. So I suggest you don’t waste any more of my time,” she said, and ended the call.

Her office window faced a perpetual waterfall cascading from the reservoir, one of many in the fortified Cadmus complex concealed in the Starling City dam. It was a hell of a commute, but nothing quite matched the feeling of looking down the sheer drop that led into the river below. It was at a height that would make the average person queasy, but strangely, it made her imagine what it might be like to fly.

Flying was not on the agenda. In contrast to the steel and regular concrete at ARGUS, Cadmus had walls where the natural stone jutted through, and a film of cool condensation adhered perpetually to the metal, occupational hazard from their proximity to the immense body of water.

But Amanda was adaptable.

In an action so natural it barely registered, her slim hand and slender fingers reached up to encircle her exposed throat, half-covering the neat silvered scar that ran the whole circumference of her neck.

Yes, she was good at change. By-product of being given a second chance at the world of the living, the dirty, chaotic fray that was human existence.

She wouldn’t have traded it for an eternity of peace.

The ceiling lights sputtered out, so suddenly that it was as if someone had extinguished the only candle in the room.

In addition to being somewhat of a biological anomaly, she also didn’t scare easily. Amanda reached underneath her blazer for the holstered gun, and brought it silently to her side.

“It’s only polite to introduce yourself, you know,” she said evenly.

 _Click_.

Amanda whirled, her gun raised. But instead of a bullet roaring towards her like she'd expected, there was only a tiny flame, ghostly blue tapering to hellfire red.

The minuscule bloom of light flared briefly along the silhouette of a man’s face, rugged as a boxer’s, wicked as a curved blade. Another brisk _click_ , and the cigarette lighter extinguished itself, leaving a solitary coal-red pinprick in the same corner.

He inhaled, deeply, and puffed smoke from his nostrils like a dragon. “Good thing I’ve got no manners then,” he answered. “Or I would’ve offered you a cigarette.”

Amanda relaxed, if only a little. The reports on the Justice League’s activities had been as extensive as she might have hoped, though some of their members remained stubbornly elusive. It was almost as if the records had a way of erasing themselves before the spies got too close.

“Mr. Constantine. How nice of you to stop by. What does a dabbler in street magic want at a hydroelectric dam?”

The smoke came in fits and starts as Constantine wheezed. It took her a moment to realize he was laughing. “Nice one, love. I’ve seen my fair share of dams, and if this is nothing more than an ecologically friendly attempt to power a whole city’s pesky smartphones — I’m a bloody peacock.”

“You didn’t come all this way to tell me that, surely?” Amanda inquired.

The cigarette smoke seemed to thicken as they spoke, taking strange shapes in the shadow, swirling with the unseen shifts in the air. A chill rose along the back of Amanda’s neck, like an animal’s fight or flight response to an unknown entity. A threat.

“As a matter of fact,” Constantine said, “I did.”

He snapped his lighter open again, and it was like she had blinked for a second too long.

There were suddenly three more figures in the room, shrouded in smoke as though they’d been there the whole time. Far from fazed, Amanda felt her lip curl in amusement, because it had been years since they’d surprised her like this.

“Mr. Queen,” she said. “Mrs. Queen, and Mr. Diggle. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“We need to talk,” Oliver answered, and raised his bow.

* * *

Amanda eyed the gleaming arrowhead trained on her throat without much fear. “I hardly think that’s necessary, Oliver.”

At his left, Diggle held up his gun. “There’s a spare, if you feel like some extra incentive.”

On his right, Felicity continued to drum out a temporary hack on Cadmus’s security mainframe. “And FYI, John doesn’t mean me. He _actually_ has two guns.”

Sarcastic to a level that bordered on a death wish, Amanda raised both hands in chilly surrender and slowly lowered her handgun to the tabletop. “Still insisting on making an entrance, I see,” she remarked. “Not much change there.”

“I could say the same about you,” Oliver replied. “When were you going to tell us that Slade Wilson escaped Lian Yu?”

Instead of looking surprised — which he hadn’t expected, not really — Amanda merely reached for her keyboard. “Finally,” she said. “We have a lot to discuss. Who did he take?”

The tension in the room, already dangerously high, threatened to spill over altogether. “My son,” Oliver said, through gritted teeth.

Amanda cocked an eyebrow. “Hm. My sympathies. But I take it he’s been returned to you unharmed, or I wouldn’t be standing here alive.”

Diggle made an equally sarcastic sound. “Of course you knew.”

“I make it my business to know, John. Deathstroke was one of the most dangerous individuals ARGUS ever managed to incarcerate, and he wasn’t the only one in that prison when the riot broke out.”

“So there _was_ a riot,” Felicity said. “And here I was hoping you’d just transferred them to a more humane detention facility.”

Amanda turned her black gaze on Felicity with welcome appreciation. “Sharp as ever, Oracle.”

“I try.”

The computer remained locked to Amanda’s authentication attempts as a result of Felicity’s meticulous efforts, but a pointed look from the former and a few keystrokes from the latter released the files that she was attempting to access.

“Mr. Wilson was one of the higher-level threats in the prison. Total isolation, twenty-four hour guard. Our biggest mistake was not telling the world who he was, and what he could do. Without the public eye watching his every move, certain higher-ups thought it might be… _economical_ to try and harness his more unusual skill-set. As a contingency.”

A pin drop would have been loud in the silence that followed.

“You _what_?” Oliver said, his voice raw with the memories of everything Slade had done, what he became, what he _was_. “What the _hell_ did you do?”

“Not me, Mr. Queen.” Amanda turned her screen towards them, a status report on the operative named Deathstroke. “I was outvoted on the project. The committee opted to perform certain chemical enhancements on Mr. Wilson, while subjecting him to psychological conditioning to even out his temperament, of course.”

Between the fresh stitches on Diggle’s face and the bruises around her throat, Felicity laughed humorlessly, touching her neck where Slade had picked her up with one hand. “Reviews are in — it didn’t work.”

“That’s what I warned them. But government money doesn’t buy what it used to, Mrs. Queen. At the rate metas manage to smash through our carefully laid defences, we ordinary man — so to speak — need all the help we can get. It takes us ten weeks to build a wall, it takes you people only ten minutes to blow it up.”

“Maybe you should invest in better contractors.”

Amanda smirked. “Careful with those claws, Mrs. Queen. Don’t forget who the enemy is.”

“It’s surprisingly hard to keep track,” she snapped. “It also doesn’t explain how and why a lethally trained psychopath got loose from a super-max prison in the middle of the North China Sea, a prison _you_ were meant to be running.”

“You forget that ARGUS doesn’t exist anymore,” Amanda said. “Cadmus had to disown any active projects in the organization — or take it in front of the Senate committee as part of the mission agenda. An illegal detention facility with some of the world’s most dangerous criminals, imprisoned without fair representation or trial? That kind of thing doesn’t sit so well with the stars and stripes.”

“You’d never disown the super-max,” Diggle stated bluntly. “They’re too valuable as potential assets. You delegated, and sub-delegated, until the connection between Cadmus and Lian Yu went under a mountain of paperwork. But —”

“But it also meant that none of us — especially those with a rising political career — could step forward without incriminating ourselves in an unlawful detention scheme, yes.” Amanda’s eyes flicked across Oliver’s face like a switchblade, but the steel was just a veneer. There was something else she wasn’t telling them.

“Who broke them out?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered, honestly. “But they came prepared to kill, and they wanted the men and women locked in those cells for a reason. All of them were dangerous, and some you helped put there, after you hunted down the remaining members of HIVE.”

“So they’re gathering pieces,” Oliver said, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Something’s coming.”

For the first time since the beginning of the interrogation, Amanda’s apprehension showed.

“I would have told you about the prison riot, but I’m being watched,” she said quickly. “Any move I made towards you, or anyone in the Justice League would have landed me in suspension or a forced retirement. I needed to wait for you to come to me — and you did.”

Surprise was on everyone’s faces. “There’s a reason the Justice League wasn’t asked to help with the cleanup. Someone’s been pouring poison into the king’s ear. They think the Justice League isn’t to be trusted, and you’re just one step from catastrophe.”

She was typing now, running through the files on her computer while she spoke. Images, numbers, and densely worded reports flitted by as she ran through the catalog of material that had been withheld from the Justice League.

“They kept you out of the search because they made sure the League wasn’t trusted by the people who mattered. Make no mistake, Mr. Queen, you’re being watched. One misstep — and the Justice League will fall.”

“The public needs to know who Slade Wilson is,” Oliver said. “Nothing else matters. This man murdered my mother, and he went after my family.”

Amanda shook her head. “You don’t understand, do you?” she said. “We fenced ourselves in with Slade Wilson. We didn’t try him in the interests of national security, but it also means that we detained him without due process. Moira Queen’s death was publicized as a tragic accident, and no one’s going to believe the word of the two Queen siblings, because they were complicit in the so-called murderer’s imprisonment in the first place. It’s fruit of the poisonous tree — your reputation as a political candidate will be destroyed, and even if Slade Wilson doesn’t go free, you’ll hand your enemies the smoking gun they need to end what you’ve started as heroes.”

Felicity opened her mouth to interrupt, but it was like Amanda knew what she was about to say. “The issue here is that you’re under suspicion. The reason Slade Wilson was even part of the project at all was as a contingency, because he came _dangerously_ close — closer than anyone in living memory — to destroying the Green Arrow. He has insight into your habits, your strategies, and he’s as good a counterweight to your abilities as the Reverse Flash was to Barry Allen, and Damien Darhk was to Felicity Smoak.”

Felicity’s head jerked up at the mention of her father. “Don’t tell me —”

“We keep Damien much closer than Lian Yu,” Amanda reassured her. “I wasn’t outvoted there. You’re free to visit him, if you think he might provide some insight into the purpose of the prison riot. He’s refused to speak to anyone I’ve sent.”

Oliver glanced at Felicity, whose expression remained stony. “Let’s burn other bridges before we get to that one,” she said.

Amanda inclined her head. “By all means, propose a solution. Because as of this moment, I can see seventeen different ways that this can play out, and they all involve the Justice League being blamed for the worst crimes imaginable.”

“So we’re on probation,” Diggle summarized. “And we didn’t even realize it.”

“Correct. Right now, the committee’s not entirely swayed — we still have a fair number of holdouts. As long as the Justice League refrains from doing anything more controversial than rescuing cats out of trees, I think we can avoid total catastrophe, poisonous whispers or not. I’ll do my best, but I can’t protect you forever.”

Oliver looked at Amanda with a reluctant sense of respect. “We wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Constantine recognized it as his cue and got to his feet, blowing a puff of smoke towards the ceiling. Amanda detached a flash drive from her computer and tossed it to Felicity. “Everything you need to know, no more, no less.”

“I have a feeling it might be less,” she snarked back, and the two women smiled, albeit edged with wary respect.

“Amanda,” Oliver said.

“Oliver,” she answered.

Constantine grinned and clicked his lighter once. Time slowed to a trickle in the midst of the churning smoke, at least for everyone except them, and when it clicked the second time, they were already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random stuff that may be relevant:  
> \- Gahhhhhh writing Constantine is so fun. I need to stop. (slaps self) BTW, in case anyone's interested, he didn't teleport them anywhere. Otherwise he wouldn't be driving a run-down taxicab. He probably has some kind of freezing schtick like Professor X, so the team could make their cool superhero getaway :D  
> \- Captain America Civil War was beautiful. The team dynamic is my writing goal, and that doesn't even include the action scenes.  
> \- Also, finals start next Monday for me (bleh) and it's City of Heroes after that (my first con!!!!!), so I can't make any promises about updates. But you know me - I do my best. Even if I get a little bit slower, I'm sticking with the story, and I hope you will too :)


	25. Underhandedly Unethical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooooo. I've been very quiet because of school, and I'm temporarily resurfacing during some downtime between my second-last and last exam. City of Heroes was EPIC, but I'm also fighting a horrendous flu that I suspect is the universe's way of telling me too much fun is a bad idea. So I'm going to keep these short. *Notes, not the update itself.

Felicity pressed her fingertips to her temples, in the middle of a stare-down with the files Amanda had gift-wrapped under mild duress (a surprise office visit, but still).

As predicted, _less_.

Then again, she hadn’t exactly expected the woman who lived and breathed secrets to just _toss_ them the Cadmus contingency plan. Especially since said contingency was for the apparent eventuality that the Justice League might need to be put down.

Amanda played chess, but she also played the occasional level game. She’d given them Slade Wilson because even to her, Cadmus had crossed a line by trying to recruit the man who’d murdered Oliver’s mother.

Which, for understandable reasons, wasn’t as reassuring as it should have been, since Amanda had been the minority vote on a project that redefined _Underhandedly Unethical_.

Diggle and Oliver were sitting on either sides of her, their voices carrying all the way to the ceiling in their underground headquarters. The glass table in the round had seen its fair share of team debates, but never like this.

_Slade Wilson’s in the wind._

_Why should we trust Amanda Waller?_

_Better than Cadmus._

_That’s like choosing between poison and a bullet._

It was a strange situation between deja vu and novelty, because it had most of the same characters, albeit with slightly different shading (mostly name changes). But the essence, the bones of it, remained unchanged.

They weren’t sure who to trust in a world that stood against them.

“You’re being uncharacteristically quiet,” Oliver said, interrupting her thoughts.

Felicity lifted her head. “I’ve been reading,” she said, leaning on her elbows. “The secret plans of the supervisory government agencies require some serious focus.”

“Cadmus cultivated Slade Wilson like an ace up their sleeve, and someone broke him loose,” Diggle summarized, in his clipped, neat way. “What more do we need to know?”

“For starters,” she said, scrolling down the docket, “they experimented with chemical enhancements, trying to recreate the effect of the Mirakuru serum without the hallucinations, mood swings and general insanity. They went through some serious white rats with the number of clinical trials they did — failed, just BTW. _I_ could have reverse-engineered the formula for them, and STAR Labs could have mass-produced it in a week, but then again, that defeats the purpose of coming up with a super secret plan to take us down.”

Oliver touched his fingertips silently to the glassy tabletop, his expression closed and flat. “They don’t trust us,” he added. “And now we’re going to pay for it.”

Felicity knew she wasn’t the only one who heard the undercurrent of hurt in his peppy summary. The Justice League was something Oliver — all of them — had built from the ground up, blood, sweat and tears. Finding out that Cadmus had crafted contingencies against them with specific weaknesses in mind, that they’d been deliberately kept out of the loop during the hunt for one of their worst adversaries…it was a demoralizingly stark look at just how much trust their years of work had accrued with the powers that be.

Not damn near enough.

With everything that had happened with Connor and Barry, now Slade, the past few days had been a chronicle of some serious hits to Oliver’s sense of trust, and Felicity knew better than anyone what it looked like when he stopped trusting people.

It was usually a sign that he was about to get hurt. Badly.

“Let’s not throw in the towel just yet. Amanda said that someone was turning the committee against us,” she said evenly. “Clearly it’s someone with access — or enough money to buy their way into it. The committee’s made up of senators and government bigwigs, so maybe Lyla can — I don’t know — do some digging?”

Diggle nodded. “We can’t troubleshoot unless we know who we’re dealing with,” he agreed. “I’ll ask her tonight.”

“Maybe over some scrambled eggs and pancakes,” Felicity suggested, a joke that made the two friends smile at each other, if only a little.

“Jessica Danforth was a friend of my mother’s,” Oliver said, still not quite meeting their eyes. “She’s a senator now. Maybe she’ll have some idea about what’s happening — but I can’t imagine she’d ever disclose something like that.”

“How about a hit of Queen-patented charm?” she prompted, but he didn’t smile.

Instead, Oliver went to the next item on the agenda. “Can you neutralize the chemical enhancements?” he asked. “Some kind of cure, like the last time?”

“Based on what you've told me, the first time on Lian Yu was a one-off hit of some serious crazy juice,” Felicity answered, with a glance through the files again. “Cadmus was exposing him to the modified serum over extended periods of time, and yes, reading it out loud makes it seem even more crazy that _anyone_ ever thought this would be a good idea.”

“Crazier than a League full of super-people in Halloween costumes?” Diggle said flatly.

Felicity gave him the point there. “I don’t think there’s a way to reverse the effects in one go. It’ll have to be at least as long as it took to get him that strong in the first place. I can't believe I'm saying this, but a part of me’s wondering if it would be easier if we just took him out.”

Diggle and Oliver's heads both shot up at that, and Felicity stared. “What?”

The two men exchanged looks, with enough wariness to suggest that she’d said something of the one-eighty variety.

“You’re suggesting…we kill Slade,” Diggle said. “You. Felicity.”

Felicity’s fingers stiffened at the implication, but she stood her ground, on the suggestion at least. “Slade Wilson kidnapped my son and hurt him, worse than any child should ever have to be hurt. The Felicity Smoak who went up against Slade nine years ago wouldn’t have said what I’m saying now, but that doesn’t make my point of view any less legitimate. We do what we do for family. I don’t think either of you can tell me that I’m wrong for thinking it.”

It sounded unexpectedly mafia-ish, the line about family, but Felicity (a part of her, at least) meant it. Having Tommy snatched from them, used as bait for some kind of twisted rematch in a fight he had absolutely no part in, seeing her son’s tears at an ugly injury inflicted in his desperation to get away…it set something off inside of her. She was a mother, and if push came to shove, she could envision a scenario where she would end Slade Wilson, for the threat he was to everything she held dear.

Felicity didn't imagine for a second that Oliver didn't feel the same way in his capacity as a father, except this time, it was entirely possible that she wouldn't lift a finger to stop him.

Oliver met her gaze. “We still need to find Slade,” he said, in a tone that suggested _later_. “Then we decide.”

Felicity had to smile at that, the strange push and pull between them. Even in the worst of times, during an unexpected compromise within morally gray territory, they could rely on the other to hold the line, to play the thankless role of Devil’s advocate.

And it was a pretty big Devil this time round.

“The same debate,” she said quietly.

“It’s what sets us apart from them,” he returned, quieter still.

Their gazes held, and Felicity nodded slightly. “One more thing. We need to tell Barry about Cadmus and what they’re doing.”

Oliver’s jaw hardened. “The same way he told us about Connor?”

Diggle shook his head, like even he had to disagree with Oliver’s take. “You know better than anyone that I’m not a fan of the way Barry handled the situation with Connor, but if they dredged up Slade Wilson to take down the Green Arrow, the Flash deserves to know if something along those lines might be coming his way.”

“Barry never listens." Oliver's tone was sharp enough to cut. "Not to me, _especially_ when it comes to keeping his head down.”

Felicity tipped her head to one side. “Given the circumstances, I think he has a pretty convincing reason to think twice,” she said gently.

“She’s right, Oliver.” Diggle wasn’t backing down either. “When your kid yells _I hate you_ , you don’t scream it back.”

Oliver divided a long opaque look between his two closest friends, and there was a long silence after the fact. “Fine,” he said. “Call him.”

Felicity rapped the table like she had a gavel in her hand. “In the meantime,” she said, “a darkness-hugging meta and a city won’t clean itself up. We have work to do.”

Diggle nodded, followed by Oliver. "We have work to do."

* * *

Oliver lurched awake. It was still dark, and velvety shadows clung to the walls, pooled across the floor in between patches of dappled amber moonlight. His heart thumped an uneasy staccato against his collarbone, and he tried to quiet his breathing, not wanting to wake Felicity. She was on her side with her back to him, her hand loose and open on the pillow, for all intents and purposes still asleep. Moving carefully, silently, he disentangled himself from the covers and padded barefoot to the windows, sweat cooling along his spine. There was a carafe on the ledge, and he poured water into an empty glass, noting the slight tremor in his hands. He drained the glass in one go and pressed his forehead to the cool windowpane with a slow, dragging breath.

His breath bloomed across the glass, and Oliver tried to remember what he'd dreamed. It was like grasping at thin air, and he gave it up as another impossibility, opening his eyes to the anonymous darkness.

He froze.

There was something in the trees. The gardens were unlit, except for the light at the back porch, and the dim orange glow caught a glint of steel as it shifted in the cover of the woods.

A blade, and a distinctive two-colored mask.

Very slowly, Slade Wilson twisted his sword mid-air, a gesture as mocking as it was a wordless challenge.

Oliver backed away from the windows, his calves colliding with the bed frame as he turned to wake his wife.

" _Felicity_ ," he said, shaking her by the shoulder. "He's here. Get Hazel and Tommy, take them —"

He trailed off mid-sentence, hit by the shocking realization that his whole hand was slick with something sickeningly warm.

"Felicity?"

A small push was all it took to roll her onto her back, and her hand fell limply across the stained mattress, the inside of her forearm streaked with blood.

Oliver whispered her name again, but he knew — somewhere — that she was already gone. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, a narrow trail of black seeping from the corner of her parted lips, an open wound where her heart was supposed to be.

"No, no, no —"

A hand clamped tight at the back of his neck, Felicity's blood wet against his skin from a dripping blade.

“ _You should have killed me when you had the chance, kid,_ ” Slade hissed, and the sword tore into his chest to stop his heart mid-beat.

* * *

Oliver jerked upright for the second time, breathing like he’d run a marathon. The muscles in his throat couldn’t seem to help him swallow, and his skin was soaked with perspiration, icy with fear.

His first thought was Felicity, and he twisted around to look for her, to reassure himself that it wasn’t — it _couldn’t_ — be real. The answer presented itself almost immediately, because there she was, turned towards him in her sleep, clearly breathing. But unlike the dream, her arms were slung loosely around Hazel, and her outstretched fingertips just skimmed the unruly fringe over Tommy’s forehead. Ever since they’d found out that Slade Wilson was back, neither Oliver nor Felicity could have slept easy at the thought of leaving the children alone for the night.

The reality was an intoxicating rush of relief, the differences between nightmare and real life. Everyone was there. Alive. Accounted for. Oliver felt his heartbeat slow, if only by a little, as he drank in the sight of his family.

It was in the smallest details. The rightness of it. They slept on either side of their children, because — of all the things to be afraid of, and there were plenty — a part of them still worried that Hazel or Tommy might roll off the bed in the middle of the night. The stubby crayons on the nightstand beside Felicity’s glasses. The _Harry Potter_ book she was reading to them (by popular demand) half-poking out from underneath her pillow, because it kept the scary stuff away. Their daughter, puffing tiny snores into the back of her brother’s shirt. The faded green dinosaur Tommy clutched to his small chest, his cast covered with pictures and scrawled signatures from friends at school. Felicity’s breath stirring the tuft of hair that curved across Hazel’s delicate ear. Her wedding ring gleaming against the sheet.

Just a dream.

But he knew how easily nightmares crossed the elusive border into reality, and without thinking, Oliver found himself slipping quietly from the covers and circling over to the far side of his sleeping family. Felicity didn’t stir when he climbed onto her side of the bed, and he didn’t want her disturbed, not for something like this. All he wanted was to feel his arms curled around her, more a reassurance for him than anything else, and let the sureness of her presence — her _peace_ — keep the dark thoughts at bay.

With his cheek just inches away from her exposed shoulder, Oliver shut his eyes and felt his pulse slow, stillness rushing in to fill its place.

“...mmf?” Warm and drowsy. “Oliver?”

“Sorry,” he whispered, and he meant it. “I’ll go back in a bit.”

Felicity cleared her throat and ran a hand along the length of his bare arm, already shifting further inward to make room for him. “S’matter?” A pause. “Hazel roll out again?”

Oliver shook his head. “No,” he promised. “Nothing’s the matter. I'm thinking too loud.”

She _hm_ -ed in a way that was both a grunt and a laugh. “So you just missed me.”

“I did.” He filled his lungs with the scent of her, again, and blew it out in a long, slow sigh. “I miss falling asleep like this.”

Another sleepy little huff of amusement (did she know how much she made him smile?) and Felicity half-turned to look at him over her shoulder, her eyes still heavy with sleep. "Hate to break it to you, big guy, but s'only been a day or two," she mumbled. "S'not possible to miss me yet."

Oliver had to smile at that, and cuddle a little closer. They'd had whole conversations like this before, Felicity barely awake but still — somehow — possessing the capacity to talk whole circles around him. Lazy, soothing circles. It was one of her many endearing quirks, that if she knew Oliver wasn't sleeping, whatever the reason, she'd never leave him without company. God only knew he'd tried to get her to go back to sleep, the first few times it had happened. Now it was a routine with them, the most inane questions about her that Oliver could think to ask — things he'd always wondered but never had the time or place to submit a formal request — or the unhurried stories she could tell at the drop of a catchphrase, like she could talk his sleeplessness away.

_What's your favorite cartoon?_

_The one with the gadgets and things. Doctor something._

_Inspector._

_Tha's the one_.

Felicity frowned a bit, rubbing his arm again. "You're all sweaty," she said, but it was more from worry than an actual complaint. "Were you dreaming?"

"It's nothing."

With a grunt of disagreement, she rolled over and before Oliver could contemplate doing anything else, her small hands were sliding around _him_ , her legs bumping, knotting with his, her nose and chin burrowed just below the neck of his T-shirt, the two of them chest to chest. All without quite being awake. Every inch of her was hunkered down to fight this nightmare, fully lucid or not.

"Tell me," she said simply.

Oliver followed the curve of her arm with the bump of one knuckle, like it was a ritual against worry. "Slade."

"Was I there?" she guessed.

He nodded against her skin. "It's always you, or Hazel, or Tommy. That doesn’t change.”

"But we're always here when you wake up," she reminded him. "He _wants_ you to be afraid, Oliver.”

_It's working_ , he thought, darkly. Slade Wilson had always excelled in the art of dismantling Oliver’s meticulous mental barriers, and leaving his own grotesque mementoes in the process, warped and treacherous puzzles in his own mind to make him question everything he thought he'd known.

He gathered her close again. "It's like the last time."

"S'not true," she said, as though she had never been more certain of anything else. Before he could ask why, she patted him on the chest, right over his heartbeat, an affectionate gesture like the muscle residing inside his body was an entity of its own. "This is stronger now."

Seemingly content at a point made, she pulled his arms securely around her waist, snuggling against him to sleep. “We’re in this together. If Slade Wilson knows what’s good for him, he’ll be afraid of that.”

Oliver felt a smile lift the corner of his mouth, his spirits raised by her uncompromising faith, even in the darkest hours of the night. “Okay.”

* * *

"That's such... _crap_ ," Thea hissed, over the policy proposals they were meant to be approving. "Waller can't be serious —"

An aide came rushing through the open office door, and Oliver shot his sister a brief warning look. Thea stared sightlessly down at her notes while he leaned back in his chair to take the documents.

"Mr. Sanders says he put your changes into the healthcare initiative, but they're still waiting on a report from the institute before they can make the final projection."

"Great work." Oliver flipped through the fresh pages, still warm from the printer. "Thank you, Kendra."

She beamed. "Happy to help, Mr. Queen."

The smiles slid off the siblings' faces as soon as they were alone again, and Thea shook her head at the page in front of her. "I can't believe this. For seven years, we save their asses — risking life and limb — and they've been working behind our backs to take us down."

"Contingencies," Oliver said, stressing the difference. "They're thinking like a government, and I can't say I blame them. We're not a part of Homeland Security, or the CIA, or any kind of law enforcement agency. We're not elected —“

Thea rapped her knuckles on the mahogany tabletop. "Careful there, brother dearest. The votes aren't in."

She knew what he meant, and Oliver pressed his point. ”We’re vigilantes, and they gave us the freedom to operate, but we can't honestly say that we expected them not to have a plan B. It would be irresponsible, and _arrogant_. Amanda wasn't ambiguous about that when she handed the Justice League off to us in the first place."

"But _Slade Wilson_ , Ollie,” Thea was partly hunched forward to whisper, her knuckles standing out white against her skin. "He murdered mom. In cold blood, a sword through her heart, right in front of us. And Cadmus decided he would make a good secret weapon, just in case. Doesn't it make you... _sick_?"

Wary of the bustling campaign office outside, they kept their voices low. Oliver turned back to the proposals in front of him, but the black and white words seemed to dance and he had to shut his eyes, because it did. It was easy to think like a political candidate in front of his sister, and dissect the reasons _why_ and _how_ like he understood them, but there was an uncrossable line between understanding Cadmus's purpose and what they'd chosen to do with Slade.

It was a sword through his chest all over again, the thought of Slade Wilson walking free, with Moira Queen's blood on his hands, sneering at him from the shadows.

"I'm not saying they did the right thing by trying to reform Slade Wilson," he said, each word carefully measured. "But being responsible — and accountable — means there have to be checks and balances."

"How many times do we have to be dragged into the same debate, Ollie?" Thea said, exasperated. "The government — or Big Brother, whatever — decides that _we_ can't be trusted, that _we're_ the problem. They decide to take us out, or register us, or _whatever_ solve-all plan they come up with. Meanwhile, something else is trying to destroy the world as we know it and we're too busy fighting paranoid bureaucrats to do something about it. So we become criminals — we run, we disappear, and fight in the shadows again. We take care of their problems, and mommy and daddy decide that we're okay again. God, I'm getting mad just _thinking_ about it."

"That happened once. With ARGUS and Damien Darhk," Oliver said.

"Once is already too much," Thea retorted, with no less conviction. "Damien Darhk could have started an apocalypse with Wi-Fi and a dark room, and you know it. Thank God Felicity doesn't have a helix of evil DNA in her body. We're not the problem here. They are."

"Listen to yourself, Speedy. You're saying that we're the ones who should be trusted, just because. We may have a history of being in the right, but that’s not the same thing as a guarantee. We can't expect any government to give us the kind of freedom we have without some kind of backup measure in case we turn on them. They need to feel safe, and for them — this is it."

Thea held up her hands, a universal sign for _stop_. "Okay," she said. "Okay. What if...there really is some kind of plan to keep us in check? What if that plan is even _half_ as terrible as the one Damien Darhk had in mind? If we don't do something while they're still operating in secret, we lose any advantage we have when they go public. Except now, you and Felicity have children, so do John and Lyla, even...even Barry.”

There was a momentary pause at the name, and Thea looked like she’d regretted saying it. “Look, we can't all just disappear into the night and come out when it's safe again. Mom always said that there was nothing she wouldn't do for her family. The Justice League is _your_ family, Ollie, as much as it's mine. We can't just sit here and let them do this to us."

Oliver's hand was covering his mouth, and he shifted slightly, without taking his eyes from his sister. "So what do you suggest?" he asked, without malice. "You said it yourself: we all have families now. We can't become outlaws. I'm running for mayor, and if I win...that's even less of an option. Our hands are tied, Speedy. The only choice I can see, right now, is to toe the line. Make sure the Justice League doesn't get involved in anything that might hand them the smoking gun."

" _Rescue cats out of trees_ , you mean," Thea said, quoting Waller with copious sarcasm. "We're not seriously going to do that. I mean, for one, Roy still hates cats. Why do you think he never goes to Donna and Quentin's?"

"No, we're not going to compromise what the League does. The people come first, not the politics," Oliver said. "We started this to protect them, and that's what we're going to do. Just...you know. Carefully."

Thea shook her head, her arms crossed so tight it looked like a Gordian knot. "Does that mean we have to actually start using doors now?"

"It's less murder on the knees," he agreed.

Her black expression lightened slightly, and she flicked him on the back of the hand like she used to when they were younger. A by-product of residual childhood reflexes meant that Oliver was highly tempted to retaliate.

"Sorry guys," Alex said, sticking his head around the doorway. "You've got a visitor, but security's having some trouble with her."

Thea raised her eyebrows at the female pronoun. "The ex-Mossad guys Dig hired? You're kidding. Did Helena Bertinelli break out of federal custody?“

Oliver rolled his eyes at the thoroughly unsubtle dig at his romantic history. "I think I have an idea who it might be," he said, getting to his feet. "She's fine, Alex."

"Uh, Mr. Queen, I do _not_ think that is a good idea —"

"Well, that's too bad," Sara said, stepping soundlessly past Alex and into the room. "Does that mean I don't get the grand tour?"

* * *

Sara leaned nonchalantly on the edge of Oliver's desk, watching Alex sneak glances at her from beyond the office windows like he was worried she'd launch a sudden assault on the candidate. Thea’s overt _business as usual_ attitude seemed to have little effect on his awareness of the possible ramifications Sara Lance had for the Queen campaign. Though by dint of common sense, Oliver imagined that if the same arguments applied to Laurel, the issue would be resolved in much the same way. Even if a part of him did wonder (purely for the amusement of it) whether Alex would be brave enough to suggest rumors of an extramarital affair in front of Nyssa al Ghul.

”Your campaign manager doesn't trust me," Sara observed, looking over her shoulder. "Then again, I've gone up against Israeli Special Forces training before. He _should_ be worried."

Oliver managed a fleeting smile, tapping the pen in his hand against a dense brief. “Play nice, Sara. Everyone here is a friend.”

Sara made a small pouting expression. "Only because you asked," she said, and swept a look around the campaign headquarters. "Running for mayor suits you. Better than occasionally showing up at Verdant for free drinks."

"In all fairness," Oliver said, "we'd just hired a great new bartender."

Being the bartender in question, Sara laughed, her freckled face animated by the lightness of it. "How's Felicity? I would have swung by QI, but I thought I'd come straight to find you first."

"Good. Investor confidence is solid, quarterly profits are at a three-year high, and... _sorry_ , I'm talking like a candidate again," he said, running a hand over his face in the belated realization that he was quoting an older speech. "She's doing great. Running a company better than I ever did. There's a reason why I have my hands free to run for mayor."

"Don't sell yourself short there, Ollie, I think you have a knack for it," Sara answered. "Remember how you used to say you were mayor of the pillow fort when you were eight?"

A laugh of pure surprise escaped Oliver at the memory. "Do _not_ tell anyone about that."

Sara winked. "Take the secret to my grave." A pause. "So to speak."

The instinctive giddiness of old friends seeing each other again hovered over their heads like a haze of sunlight, and as tempted as Oliver was to prolong the illusion that nothing was wrong, he felt his expression grow serious again, all jokes aside now. "Thank you for coming," he said. "I know this was...unexpected."

Sara shook her head at his thanks. "Slade Wilson's my responsibility too," she said. "It was only a matter of time."

The friends nodded at each other, thinking of the island, and what it had brought. All manner of grief and hell, of which Slade was only a small, yet significant part.

"How're you holding up?" she asked. "Thea might have mentioned something about a fight between you and Sparky. And Arrow Junior."

Oliver huffed in quiet exasperation at the news making the rounds. "I don't want to talk about it."

" _Oliver Queen circa 2012_ ," Sara teased. "On the pain of getting my head bitten off, I can't say I'm surprised. Nyssa said from day one that your son was going to be something. She doesn't offer to train just anyone, but you know that."

"You know why I said no," he said quietly.

"Clearly Connor's old enough to revisit that choice," Sara pointed out, in a level tone of voice. "Especially with Slade Wilson on the loose, you can't say that it's a bad idea."

Oliver rubbed his throbbing temples. "I don't know what to think anymore."

"You do, you just don't like it.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

Sara didn’t pursue the subject, but continued to observe her surroundings with a steely blue gaze. They were old friends, with much of the same training under their respective belts, albeit with very different scars. Oliver knew that look. The smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, and it was because she was thinking like a fighter, weighing up vulnerabilities and assessing the vitals of the situation.

Oliver leaned back in his chair, his hands folded in front of his chest. “What’s the verdict?”

“You’re out in the open this time,” she concluded. “The world knows who _you_ are, but not Slade Wilson. That should make anyone nervous.”

It was an actual impulse to roll his shoulders, as though there was a mark squarely in the middle of his back. “I feel like I drew the target myself,” he admitted, and his eyes flickered up to Sara’s, because she understood better than anyone. “Not just me.”

Sara nodded. “I stopped by a couple of old haunts on my way back,” she said. “There’s some chatter underground. Slade Wilson’s assets were seized by ARGUS when he was put away, and he hasn’t reopened his supply caches.”

“There’s someone backing him,” Oliver guessed, following the thought.

“Someone with the money and influence to get him into the country without raising a red flag. I have a few names for Felicity,” she said, producing a wrinkled piece of paper from her pocket. “Probably dummy accounts, and encrypted. The guys I got these from weren’t exactly in a loquacious mood.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow. “She’ll enjoy the challenge.”

Sara pushed off the desk with a smile, but she stopped just shy of the door. “Hey, about your son,” she said. “Don’t be too hard on him. He’s just trying to live up to something great. It’s all some of us can do, in the end.”

In many ways, Oliver knew Sara was right. But with Connor, it depended very much on whether there was anything left to live up to. And Oliver couldn’t say. He honestly couldn’t say for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone doesn't already know everything that happened in COH2, or is interested in reading about it, I wrote a recap on my tumblr:   
> http://chronicolicity.tumblr.com/post/144547417038/city-of-heroes-2-recap-the-hall-2-perspective
> 
> 4x22 was EPIC. The action was so, beautifully, on point. Oliver jumping and shooting an arrow mid-air, WHILE RUNNING, is officially my favorite thing about him ever.  
> The writers continue to write Donna Smoak so incredibly well.   
> Here's hoping they throw out all the kidnapping, brainwashing, and evil-boyfriend storylines for Thea Queen next year because I am so incredibly bored with them. She deserves better than that.


	26. Oracle, Green Arrow, Spartan

Felicity puffed a strand of hair out of her eyes, the base of her wrist stinging from a recent disarm move. “Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea,” she said. “No offense to present — _shirtless_ — company.”

Diggle raised his eyebrows, the gun in his hand pointed at her face. Unloaded and strictly for training purposes, but still. “You sound just like Oliver when he’s having a slow day,” he commented. “I knew I shouldn’t have left the two of you alone for training.”

Subject number two of the zinger shot Diggle an _oh really?_ look of his own. “Pretending to have a slow day is the only way I let you beat me,” Oliver answered, a similarly disarmed handgun directed at Diggle’s chest (aw). “C’mon, let’s see how tough you really are.”

“With the amount of googly-eyes going on here, I could take the two of you in a tag team,” Diggle snorted. “ _Easy_.”

Oliver widened his eyes in joking surprise. “Humor me, then.”

_Men._

Fortunately, Felicity had been semi-adequately trained to see her options in a situation where a gun was pointed at her face, and she chose the more promising one.

She slapped the exposed side of Oliver’s wrist and seized the barrel of the gun with the other, taking advantage of the momentary slackness of grip to twist the weapon around into her hands. All — she was pleased to note — in one fluid motion.

“ _Bang_ ,” she said, taking aim at Oliver with no shortage of smugness. “I defected.”

“Traitor,” he said, but he was smiling. “Watch your head next time, you’re not turning it fast enough. If the guns were armed —”

“—I’d already be missing my prefrontal cortex, I know,” Felicity said, tapping the muzzle of the gun to the side of her head (ow). “So are we going to keep pretending that this exercise isn’t purely for my benefit?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s in my benefit too,” Diggle reassured her. “If it were just me and Oliver, the Glocks would be loaded.”

Oliver’s only response to the damning exposé of his training method was to lift his shoulders with absolute nonchalance. “Got to keep you on your toes somehow.”

Felicity saw the move coming before anyone else did, which in _no_ way, shape or form had anything to do with her keeping an eye on Oliver’s body below the waist. None whatsoever. She dodged out of the way at the same moment Oliver struck, catching Diggle by the forearm and forcing the barrel upward in a blow that should have broken any opponent’s nose. But he feinted at the last second and flipped Diggle onto the sparring floor with a thud.

“All right?” he asked, commandeered gun in hand.

“Lucky shot,” Diggle grunted, but grasped the proffered forearm to get up. “What was that, jujitsu?”

“Aikido,” Oliver answered. “And a few other things.”

Diggle snorted again. “Of course.”

And on it went, the strange exercise of musical chairs, except instead of music, it was perspiration and heavy breathing, and instead of chairs, it was a pair of bullet-free Glocks. Granted, live firearms were meant to be the deterrent against close-quarters combat by design, but the bad guys they went up against had fewer qualms than the average alley mugger when faced with a gun.

If Felicity had to choose something she excelled at in the realm of self-defense, besides relying on whatever was handy and yes, the occasional hit of beginner’s luck, she could get a gun from lowlife’s hand to hers with an impressive slate of moves, ranging from the simple hit-and-twist, to a slightly more challenging one that involved a real sock to the gonads as a flashy starter-offer.

Though said repertoire, as of yet, did _not_ include an impossible-ish maneuver that involved swinging around the attacker like it was piggyback time.

“I’m not sure you understand the lack of physical coordination I’m capable of here,” she said, faced away from Oliver because the move was for when a gun was pointed at her back. “Remember that time I almost broke your toes with that frozen turkey?”

“Vividly,” he answered, the muzzle pressed in between her shoulder blades. “But it’s always good to challenge yourself.”

Making ample use of the fact that Oliver was behind her, Felicity gave Diggle an eye-roll at full snark blast. Periods of heightened stress, coupled with a purely _Oliver_ -esque unwillingness to discuss what was really eating at him meant that his standards as a mentor shot sky-high.

Diggle inclined his head in a _humor him_ way, and Felicity sucked in a breath, trying to envision the move as he’d shown it to her.

_Twist — deflect — jump_.

“I warned you,” she muttered, and went for it.

The first part was easy enough: twist and dodge in the same movement, shifting off the line of fire while pushing the gun out of the way. The next part was potentially more fiddly, because it involved using her opponent’s bent leg as a stepping point to get her arms around him in some kind of neck hold.

Which, needless to say, was about ninety percent less graceful than _anyone_ had envisioned.

Felicity made it about halfway before she experienced the dreaded foot slippage, and she unceremoniously threw her arms around Oliver’s (no joke) head to stop herself from toppling over.

Which ( _totally_ by accident) involved the compromising position of jamming her chest in his face.

In front of Diggle.

Which wasn’t awkward, like, at all.

Diggle had the reflexes — not to mention the decency — to cover his eyes. Though the technical term might have been _face-palm_.

“Told you,” Felicity said severely, to the top of Oliver’s head.

Whatever witty comeback the Green Arrow came up with, she never heard, because it was mostly muffled in her cleavage.

Though in his defence, _mmskrgh pffst vrrd_ might have been _very_ witty. It was just that none of them spoke _half-smothered_.

Due to some very private instincts on both their parts, it took a smidge longer than was appropriate for them to disengage.

“Whoops.” Felicity hopped down from Oliver’s knee, brushing off his (flushed) face like she’d gotten it dirty somehow ( _do not go there_ ). “Nothing to see here, folks.”

Diggle was inspecting the useless handgun with intense interest. “Starting to remember why I don’t train with the both of you.”

Oliver cleared his throat pointedly. “Good attempt, Felicity. But with a move like that, you’ll need to keep up the momentum. You’re smaller, faster. Use it to your advantage.” He held out his hand for the gun. “Let’s go again.”

Felicity hastily put it behind her back, where it was helpfully whisked out of reach by Diggle. “Uh, _pass_ ,” she said. “We need to talk.”

A crease appeared between Oliver’s eyebrows. “About what?”

“Your son’s on his way here, Oliver,” Diggle said. “How are you gonna deal with that?”

“It’s fine.” He stared at them like he couldn’t imagine what the problem was. “I’m handling it.”

“We know,” Felicity said carefully. “But, given the last week or so, we thought we’d give you a chance to spitball. Maybe bounce some ideas around. I mean, it’s not like the three of us have ever come up with a bad idea before.”

That last part was a transparent fib, which Oliver most certainly called her out on.

“That’s not true… _at all_ ,” he said, already considering the Bo staffs in the corner. “Let’s keep going.”

“Oliver.” It was Diggle’s turn to take a shot at it. “We’re just worried about you. This thing with your son isn’t something every parent has to deal with. He’s a determined kid, and we just want to make sure you’ve thought the plan through.”

“Is that another way of saying he’s as stubborn as his father?” Oliver asked, with a smile he clearly didn’t mean.

“Well, we weren’t going to say it like _that_ ,” Felicity said. “But yes.”

Oliver rolled his eyes a little and caught the bottle of water Diggle tossed his way. “On the pain of the two of you hocking me, I was going to explain to him why he needs to wait until he’s eighteen. I know he thinks that it won’t change a thing, but he’ll feel differently about it in two years.”

There was a long pause. “You think he’s just going to say yes to that?” Diggle asked. “Do you want to make him pinky swear, just to make it extra official?”

Oliver looked offended. “What else do you expect me to do? I promised his mother to protect him from that side of my life. I’m not going to turn around and _train_ him.”

“Actually, Oliver, I think that’s exactly what you should be doing,” Diggle said bluntly. “You know better than anyone that it’s almost impossible to walk away from this life once you start, and I know you’ll _try_ to get him to, but that’s not the only way to keep him safe.”

In response to Oliver’s look of incredulity, Felicity reached up to touch his shoulder, the side of his cheek, a gesture to soften what they were trying to tell him. “I agree with John. I think you’re only seeing things one way right now, and I _understand_ why, with Slade…with all of it. Your instinct with the people you love most is to keep them safe, and that means pushing them away. But you owe Connor a duty. Not just because you’re his father, but because — out of all of us — you’re the one best suited to keep him alive. No one else can do this except for you, and you of all people know it means you can’t just step back.”

It was a complete one-eighty for Oliver, and Felicity had always known he wouldn’t be jumping to accept the fact that the one thing with the capacity to change everything, was himself. Oliver Queen wasn’t the danger, he was the safety. He was the shield.

But he was already shaking his head in patented denial.

“I can’t,” he said helplessly. “I’d only make it worse.”

Diggle stood his ground. “By teaching him what he needs to know? Oliver, I know you probably think otherwise, but you’re not doing the most damage to your son. Barry and STAR Labs mean well, but sometimes I look at them and the only strategy I can see from their missions is based on pure luck. Which is fine, because Barry can run faster than anyone, but that _cannot_ be what Connor learns from all this. He needs to learn what it means to be disciplined, to train because it’s the one thing stopping him from getting hurt, to make sure that he’s the best that he can be, whether there’s someone with superpowers helping him or not. I know that’s what I’d want my Sara to learn.”

“John’s right,” Felicity added, trying to catch Oliver’s eye. “We all love Connor and we want him to be safe, and we wouldn’t be saying this unless we honestly — _truly_ — believe that you could be the difference in this situation.”

Diggle clapped him on the shoulder. “You don't give yourself enough credit, Oliver. I've seen you teach someone, and Connor could benefit from the teaching. Barry and STAR Labs have done enough — now it's your turn.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be,” Oliver admitted. “I’m afraid it won’t be enough.”

“It will,” Felicity said.

“How do you know?”

“Because we have faith in you, man,” Diggle answered. “You’re the right person to do this.”

They’d waited to speak to him for a reason. Oliver could lack an extraordinary amount of confidence when it came to matters outside the _charging into gunfire_ spectrum, and sometimes it came down to herself and Diggle to give him a nudge in the right direction. Despite the _many_ hard hits trust had taken as of late, Felicity still hoped that some things stayed unscathed.

Oracle, Green Arrow, and Spartan.

Felicity smiled at Oliver, in a _sorry we blindsided you in the middle of training_ kind of way. “Promise you’ll think about it?”

He leaned into the palm of her hand with a tiny (reluctant) smile of his own. “I will.”

“Uh, Boss Lady?”

Curtis was standing at the entrance, clearly in a mild panic (though to be fair, his usual setting was _excitable_ ). “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s something you need to see. Also, your son’s here, Oliver, and someone else too, but I was told by Felicity that there were some names I’m not allowed to say, and it’s one of them.”

Felicity gave a warning hiss from between her teeth, and Curtis snapped his fingers. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that either, was I?”

“No, he wasn’t,” she muttered, dropping her hand. “Are you going to be okay?”

Curtis pointed at his chest. “Me? Oh yeah, I didn’t spill any biohazard lab waste like last ti—”

“Not you,” Diggle said, with a jerk of his head in Oliver’s direction.

Who nodded. “I think there’s a strong argument to be made that I have two very good friends who make sure I am,” he said, looking from Diggle to Felicity.

“Then we’ll leave you to it,” Felicity said, and stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Good luck.”

Oliver gave her hand a squeeze before their fingers slipped apart. Felicity walked out with Diggle, and the doors whooshed shut behind them.

* * *

“I know, I know,” Cisco said, his hands held up at Felicity and Diggle’s approach. “I’m not supposed to be here, on account of mom and dad not talking to each other, and how I kind-of-sorta took sides, but I’m here on babysitting duty.”

Diggle eyed the bag of parts at his feet, and the ostentatious absence of surprise on Felicity’s part. For understandable reasons, he was being a bit chillier to the STAR Labs squad than usual, though not overtly hostile. Felicity, on the other hand, as a child of some interesting parental dynamics, knew that taking sides was about as satisfying as it was alienating, and hugged a subdued-looking Connor before turning around to explain. “I asked Cisco to try and set up the containment stuff here. We need to move fast on that one, given the extra-busy state of our docket.”

_Especially with Cadmus out to get us_ , she added silently. But Diggle had always been good with subtext, and refrained from vocalizing it in front of Oliver’s son. Instead he turned and gave Connor an affectionate shake. “Your dad’s waiting for you downstairs,” he said. “I’ll walk you.”

“ _Okay_ ,” Connor answered, looking suspicious. “Should I be worried?”

Felicity wisely made no comment, and mounted the dais to reach her favorite work chair. Curtis was already sitting at his adjacent station, having been minding his own beeswax during the earlier conversation. “Alright, where’s the fire?” she asked, pulling one of Oliver’s spare sweatshirts around her sweaty shoulders. “And Cisco, you don’t have to hover, you’re still allowed up here.”

Cisco practically cleared the steps in one jump. “ _Thank you_ ,” he said, sinking into a chair like it was made of marshmallow fluff. “I haven’t eavesdropped so hard since my _abuela_ and her friends had their annual poker game. That shindig is _ripe_ with family gossip. You get even one nugget of info and you’re golden for a year of _bro, I own you and your fluffy secret unicorn toy_.”

Curtis _mm_ -ed like he understood the mental detour Cisco had taken en route to his point. “With my family, it’s the strawberry picking back at the farm. I don’t know what it is with old ladies and sour fruit and _manure_ , but making strawberry rhubarb pie just brings out something _scary_ in them. Even my favorite meemaw.”

“Okay, I know we’re supposed to be doing something important, but that manure is nowhere near the pies, right?” Felicity said. “Just…health and safety.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m pretty sure my meemaw could sue the people behind _The Help_ for stealing her idea,” Curtis muttered.

Felicity coughed. “Anyway!”

“ _Right_ , anyway.” He tapped on the keyboard to show Felicity what he’d asked her to inspect. “Given the latest string of _incidents_ with tech company prototypes —”

“—another word for that is _theft_ ,” Cisco muttered.

“—I’ve been getting security footage from our warehouses sent to me and scrubbed for anything out of place. Y’know, just in case we missed something.”

“The way you phrased that makes me think you’re about to say we did,” Felicity said, without taking her attention off the accelerated playback.

“Points to the lady. The lady who’s also my boss at my day job _and_ my night job. Huh. I did _not_ think of the possibility of getting fired twice—”

“ _Curtis_.”

“Sorry. I think this shadow meta —”

“—the Shade—” Cisco coughed.

“— paid us a visit at the QI warehouse.” Curtis bent closer to the screen, one finger poised above the _pause_ button. “A… _hah_. There. See that?”

Felicity did. It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo from their most elusive frenemy. The same darting shadow that passed across the lens, so quickly that Curtis had to slow it down in order for them to catch it.

“When was this?” she asked.

Curtis adjusted his glasses. “That’s what got me suspicious,” he said. “It was the night you and the team were in Blüdhaven. Of course you wouldn’t be paying attention, because —”

“—Tommy,” Felicity said. “ _Frack_.”

“Even if you spotted it, there wouldn’t be anyone to break up the nighttime robbery,” Cisco concluded, and whistled. “Man, that is _evil_.”

“What are we missing?” she asked.

“This is where I beg you not to fire me,” Curtis said. “Because it’s pretty big. They took a quantum stabilizer. Our only prototype.”

He was wincing with his whole body, and Cisco whirled in his chair to face Felicity. “Girl, _please_ tell me you did some kind of genius juju and the bad guys do not have that quantum stabilizer. Otherwise known as the _one thing_ that could help them set off a reality-destroying blast on the city.”

“I don’t know about _genius_ ,” Felicity said, chewing on her thumbnail as she watched the screen. “But they don’t have the quantum stabilizer.”

Curtis raised his hand, because he reverted back to elementary school manners when he was nervous. “How’s that possible? I checked against our records, and it’s the only thing that’s missing.”

“Easy. It was never there,” Felicity answered. “Not at the time, anyway. After Kord Industries lost their quantum manifold, I moved the stabilizer, but I also never updated company records, because I figured the person stealing from tech conglomerates knew where to look because they were hacking them. Now we know for sure.”

“So I’m not fired.” Curtis heaved a gigantic sigh of relief, and sagged back in his chair with a wheezy laugh. “Reef trip with husband still happening this Christmas. So where’d you stash it?”

“My personal vault in QI,” she said absently.

“Hey, Oracle, you’ve got a pretty scary look on your face.” Cisco swallowed. “Whatcha thinking?”

Felicity drummed her fingers in a steady rhythm against the armrest. “I’m thinking…it’s time to lay a trap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More on Oliver/Connor's conundrum next chapter. 
> 
> In case these are in fact my final words because this flu kills me, do not go see X-Men Apocalypse. The X-Men Evolution cartoon handled the story so much better, and you will only come away from this movie unable to unsee how Professor X lost his hair.  
> BRB dying.


	27. All in the Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo the flu didn't kill me. And woohoo! It's summer again! Congratulations, guys, we’ve made it through! Hopefully everyone's still alive and kicking :)

_Six Years Ago_

 

Not for the first time, Oliver found himself wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him. When the day first started, he’d imagined _some_ form of confusion in the first meeting with his son, but not the kind that involved a meeting with CCPD for an apparent abduction (a nap in a tree, as it turned out) and now, sitting on the shaded porch steps in a Central City suburb, facing the sidewalk currently roasting in the afternoon sun.

“Egg please,” Connor said, holding out his hand like a surgeon requesting a scalpel.

Oliver passed him a speckled brown egg from the carton. “Is this for school?” he inquired, keeping his tone light.

“Maybe,” was the mumbled answer, as Connor crouched around a mysterious combination of foil and what looked like pieces of broken mirror, evidently making some last-minute adjustments to a setup that would fry an egg on the asphalt.

His tongue poking from his mouth, Connor cracked the egg and dribbled it into the center of the construction. Then he scooted back to sit on the step, creased notebook and pencil in hand, apparently to wait for the results.

Oliver turned over his shoulder to look at the front door. The last time he’d seen Sandra and Felicity, they’d been talking in the kitchen over iced tea and fruit, but he had a feeling that they were intentionally delaying the process to give him some time alone with his son. “Does your mom know that you’re doing this?”

Connor shrugged, absorbed in the effort to sketch out the setup in front of them. “She bought the eggs.”

“Oh.” Awkwardly. “You know, instead of leaving it out on the sidewalk like that, you could bake an egg inside a potato.”

That earned him a curious head-tilt. “Inside a _potato_?”

Oliver nodded. “Oh yeah. If the sun’s as hot as it is now, and if you heated up some stones to pile around it, you’d be able to cook it pretty quickly.”

Whether this was something he was supposed to say to a child, he wasn’t entirely sure. As to the accuracy of the statement, Yao Fei had overlooked Oliver’s skepticism and slapped the handful of dirt-stained tubers into his keeping, with brusque instructions to do as he was told.

He’d been right.

“ _Cool_ ,” Connor said, and started to draw a diagram of a potato on his notes.

Oliver didn’t have much experience with children apart from Diggle and Lyla’s daughter, and she was still too awed by the world to think that any adult was anything short of a hero, or a magician.

A ten-year-old boy, on the other hand, was fully capable of making (and vocalizing) a judgment on the subject. Oliver’s confidence was already on the subdued side of the spectrum, and the silence didn’t help matters in the slightest.

Connor’s downturned head bobbed in time to his sketching, and Oliver wondered — for the hundredth time — what he was thinking. Because after making so many assumptions about how his son would see him, he honestly, truly, didn’t know where to start.

The natural jumping-off point might have been the three words: _I’m your father_ , but they seemed to stick in his throat when he tried.

Connor had gone still without him noticing, and was now in the process of giving Oliver a head to foot appraisal. “Did my mom ask you to be my science tutor?” he asked suspiciously.

Oliver almost laughed at the thought of himself teaching anyone science, especially since his prime experience in college had been a string of failed Biology quizzes and occasional suspense-heavy wait for the doctor’s test results to come back negative.

“No, Connor, I’m not here to be your science tutor,” he reassured him. “I came here to meet you.”

Connor scratched behind his ear with the pencil eraser. “You already did that,” he pointed out.

There was something like a gentle nudge in his tone, something almost expectant. Maybe it was Oliver’s imagination again, but there was a fresh kind of scrutiny to the way Connor looked at him, tacked on to the curiosity from before, and a part of him wondered how much he’d already guessed.

“You’re right,” Oliver said quietly. “I did.”

Blue eyes into blue, the same noses and sandy eyebrows, slightly pronounced ears. The same family. Oliver took as much reassurance as he could from that, and pressed on.

“Connor, do you know who I am?”

His son’s face had been on the subdued side before, but he lit up at the chance to talk about what he’d seen on TV, bouncing a little on the wooden step beneath him.

"I saw you on TV last week,” he said, nodding. “You’re the Green Arrow. Everyone says that you’re friends with the Flash and stuff, and you guys, like, save the world together. Is that true?”

“Sometimes,” Oliver said. “B—the Flash is a pretty cool guy. You’d like him, I think. He’s curious about everything, always asking questions.”

“That’s what the blond lady with the glasses said to me,” Connor remarked, now doodling a pair of black frames (in addition to a lightning bolt) on the potato. “She was nice.”

“Felicity’s very nice,” Oliver agreed. “She’s very important to me, and so are you, Connor.”

The last part visibly piqued Connor’s interest, and he blinked, twice. “Why? Why me?”

There it was. Oliver swallowed, well aware that he was nervous, more nervous than he had ever been in his life. He glanced behind him — at the door — and saw that Sandra was watching them through the screen, her hands clasped in front of her. She nodded slightly, and Oliver turned back to face their son.

“That…is the other reason why I came here today, and I’m about to tell you. I’d really like you to listen, and if you want me to go away…after…that’s fine too. Okay?”

He held out his little finger to make the promise, and after some hesitation, Connor took it, swinging both their hands from left to right like there was a solemn process to it.

The bones in his arm were so _small_ , so light. It was almost impossible to think of those hands helping him climb a tree, even more impossible to think of those hands when he was a baby. His son had gotten so big without him, and there was a part of Oliver — in the middle of all the anxiety and nerves — that didn’t want to miss another second of it.

“You ready?” he asked.

Hands on knees, shoulders straight. Connor nodded solemnly. “I’m ready.”

Oliver sucked in a breath of air, hoping he wasn’t wrong. “I’m your father,” he said, and added hastily, “biologically speaking.”

Connor’s eyes grew a little wider, and Oliver thought he was going to speak, but he kept his promise and didn’t say a word.

It was an undeserved mercy on Connor’s part, one that made a difficult situation just the smallest bit easier. When he’d thought about what to say to his son, in this exact moment, the starting point had always been honesty. Brutal candor, even. Oliver had seen the kind of influence fathers exerted over the people in his life, the kind of hurt they were capable of. Malcolm stood out as a prominent example, with scars inflicted on both his children. Not to mention Damien with Felicity…and they still had the marks to prove it.

The last thing Oliver wanted was to learn firsthand what it meant to be hated by his child, and as much as he wanted to learn, to throw himself into the role of a parent, he also knew that there were a lifetime of amends to be made in this unconventional — but precious — relationship with Connor.

“I know I’m not really your father,” he continued. “Not where it counts. I haven’t been around, and there are…a lot of reasons for that, but they’re not as important as the fact that I owe you an apology. I’m sorry. A father should have been there for you, every day. He should have made you feel safe — _loved_ — and he should have been there for whatever you needed. Advice, comfort…anything.”

Oliver’s fingertips were chafing as he spoke, a nervous habit he’d never quite managed to kick. Malcolm and Damien, even Roy Harper Sr., they were the whispers at the back of his mind, the towering shadows of what he _could_ become, if he lost his way.

But there was good too. Quentin and his daughters. Diggle with little Sara. And of course, Robert. He was in Oliver’s mind then, he had to be. An imperfect father, though he’d tried, in his own way. Oliver’s memories of his father were colored — inevitably — by the mistakes that came after, but if there was a moment when Robert Queen had surpassed the shadow cast by his mistakes, to become _more_ …it had been at the moment of unbridled, uncompromising honesty.

The truth.

It was what Oliver knew he wanted to do, before it was too late.

“You have your mom, and I’m very glad that you do, but I’m sorry if you ever had to wonder why I wasn’t there, or if you…weren’t enough, for some reason. That’s not true, and it never has been. I’m the one who was afraid of not being enough for you, because you deserve _every_ chance at having a good father, and because of what I do as the Green Arrow, I was afraid that I would…fail.” Oliver hesitated, looking down at his hands again. “And I really, _really_ don’t want to fail when it comes to you, Connor.”

Connor wore a frown on his small face, accompanied by a delicate furrow between his eyebrows, like there was an equation in front of him that he didn’t know how to solve, and the troubled look made Oliver react in a way he didn’t expect. He gently touched his son’s head with the palm of his hand, fitting it to the shape of his smaller skull. It was tentative, mirroring something Robert used to do, so long ago that Oliver had almost forgotten, except for this instinctual gesture to comfort.

It was an indescribable relief when Connor didn’t push him off, but Oliver relinquished his grip before too long, wary of going too far. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “That was a little cliché.”

Connor rubbed at the back of his head, looking a little awkward. “So…if you’re my dad, what happens now? The ones on TV always throw baseballs around and call their sons _squirt_ ,” he said, and glowered from beneath his eyebrows, a look that bore a pretty formidable resemblance to Roy Harper. “Don’t call me _squirt_.”

Oliver held up his hands in a joking sign of surrender. “I promise.”

Connor was still scratching the back of his head. “I can’t believe my dad’s the Green Arrow, and he told me to bake an egg with a potato. This is so _weird_.”

“Is that bad?” Oliver asked, genuinely trying to gauge his stance on the whole situation.

Connor made a noise halfway between a grunt and a question. “You’re asking me? I just found out I have a dad, like — two seconds ago.”

“I’m not very good at this,” Oliver admitted. “But I’d really like to be.”

“You say that,” Connor said dubiously, “but aren’t you _already_ my dad? My DNA’s your DNA. That’s the deal. Scotty McPhee’s mom said it in court — that’s how she got Scotty McPhee’s uncle-slash-dad to pay her money every month. The judge gave him a piece of paper he has to carry around with him all the time.”

Oliver had a brief flash forward to the possible consequences of answering carelessly. Namely a decade of childhood trauma therapy and a very disapproving Sandra. “Well, Scotty McPhee’s mom isn’t exactly wrong. She’s just thinking about it differently. You know, just because someone’s DNA is half of your DNA doesn’t mean that they’re your parent. Sometimes they have to earn it.”

“You mean…like that stuff about giving me advice and hugs or whatever,” Connor recalled.

It had sounded a lot less stupid in Oliver’s head than it did out loud, but he stuck to his stance. “That’s right. I’d really like to get there, someday.”

Connor looked up at him. “Yeah?” he said, and Oliver heard it, the glimmer of hope.

“Yeah,” he answered. “Do you think you can let me try?”

It was Connor’s turn to nod. “I mean…I don’t want you to fail either,” he said slowly. “So…okay.”

Oliver smiled. “Okay.”

* * *

_Present Day_

 

As he often did while deep in thought, Oliver twirled the rattan cane in his hand from one hand to the other — over palm, under wrist, again — in the same series of reflexive exercises.

He couldn’t quite say that Diggle and Felicity had changed his mind, because a part of him knew he had decided, a while ago, he just hadn't wanted to admit it. Because there would be no going back from here.

"Why do you do that?"

Oliver hadn't heard his son come in, and looked around. Connor was standing by the door, hands in his pockets. The small injuries from Blüdhaven were on the mend and barely visible, scratches thinned and scabbed, the bruise on the side of his neck already paled to yellow.

The ease with which Connor carried himself — nerves aside — showed that they weren’t the worst of the injuries he’d ever gotten. Oliver didn’t know the half of it, but he had a feeling that Connor was already used to pretending like they weren’t there.

A family trait.

"Hi," he said. "Why do I do what?"

Connor mimicked the gesture, turning his palm up and down to mirror what Oliver had done with the canes. It had become so instinctive, so much like second nature that it hadn't occurred to him as something worth noticing.

”I never asked, I guess,” he explained. “Hangman’s curiosity, which — before you ask — is like gallows humor but, you know, with asking questions. It’s good, right? Felicity thinks I should patent it.”

Oliver gave him a look. “She didn’t actually say that.”

“No, patents don’t work that way,” Connor answered easily, dropping his backpack by the weights. “I just thought mentioning your favorite person in the world might invoke some merciful vibes.”

In the scope of things, Oliver thought it wasn’t the worst idea his son had come up with. But appearances’ sake (and a brief consideration of what Diggle might do) demanded that he at _least_ pretend like heavy discipline was still on the cards.

“Oh.” Oliver flicked the cane into the palm of his hand with a crisp _thwack_. “Well, I’m not going to kill you. They don’t like that kind of thing in mayoral campaigns.”

Connor mimed a stab to the chest. “Solid dad joke.”

Oliver smiled at the humor, in spite of the disciplinary face he was meant to be putting on. “In answer to your question, a man named Slade Wilson taught me how,” he said, repeating the action for Connor to see. “It builds balance, keeps the muscles in my hands flexible.”

A strange light went off in Connor's eye at the mention of Slade, and he nudged at the floor with one sneakered foot. "Is that the same guy you went after at Blüdhaven?"

Oliver considered his answer before he gave it. "The same."

Connor nodded slowly, digesting the information in his curious, adaptable way. "Sounds complicated.”

“It is,” Oliver said, and left it there.

Both of them noticed; a habitual move on his part to keep things short in front of his son. To keep him out of it. Connor still looked like he expected something deeply unpleasant to occur any minute, though the nervousness was reinforced by stiff-necked defiance and unusually straight posture.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly. “For lying…and if what I did had something to do with this thing between you and uncle Barry. You’re fighting, aren’t you? I could see it on his face, after you guys left.”

A part of Oliver was gratified to hear it. Because Barry deserved every second of that inner conflict, for breaching a trust beyond repair. But the same argument didn’t extend to Connor, who if anything, hadn’t known about the precarious situation in the Justice League to make the same call.

“It’s not your fault,” Oliver promised. “Barry and I have been…incompatible working in the same team for a while now. This was just a warning, one I should have listened to a long time ago.”

“That’s what parents say to their kids when they get a divorce,” Connor said flatly. “Who keeps the house?”

Dark humor aside, Oliver wasn’t here to talk about Barry Allen. “The situation with Barry is not your concern,” he said, careful and even. “That’s not why you’re here today.”

Connor heaved a sigh. “I’m here to see the error of my ways,” he guessed. “Any chance you can drop the sticks before giving me a lecture?”

Oliver tapped one against the floor with a hollow _thunk_. “I didn’t think you scared so easily, Connor.”

“Let’s say I’ve heard the stories,” he said, and hurriedly scanned the room for hidden traps, like there was a tripwire snagged somewhere beneath the salmon ladder. “Any crossbows hidden in some bushes?”

“Not this time,” Oliver said, tossed the canes across the room.

Connor snatched them out of the air before he’d apparently realized what he was catching. “Uh,” he said. “What?”

Oliver reached into the rack of weapons lined up against the far wall, until he alighted on the well-worn Bo staff, scuffed and notched from use. “I know I can’t ask you to give up what you’re doing,” he said, curling his fingers around the shaft.

Connor hefted the canes with some familiarity, and Oliver knew he hadn’t forgotten one second of his self-defence training. “Depends,” he said. “Are you asking nicely?”

The Bo staff snapped to full length in Oliver’s hand, and he twirled it slowly, unhurriedly, behind his back. “Why are you doing this?”

Connor was watching him very warily. “Do you really need to ask?”

“Yes,” Oliver answered. “If we’re moving forward, one way or another, I need to hear the reason from you.”

Connor didn’t say anything at first, but from the way he stepped forward, weighing his weapons, Oliver sensed he was choosing his words.

“I’m not crazy,” he said defensively, as though anticipating something he knew Oliver was thinking. “I know I’m sixteen, and still living with my mom and going to school. I _know_ that interning at the CCPD — and a few self-defence lessons — they don’t make me anything special. But it’s not about that. I grew up in Central City, with metas and stuff running around every day. Someone trying to wreck the city was just…Tuesday for everyone. It was pretty easy to accept that weird things just happen, you know? Leave it to the guys with powers — they’ll fix it. Then one day, out of _nowhere_ , when the Green Arrow comes over to pick me up from school and tells me that he’s my dad. A part of me thought, _why not_? Also — _thank god he’s cool_ , but that’s something else.”

Oliver smiled a little at the memory of their first meeting. “You thought I was cool.”

“Oh yeah, that didn’t go away for a while,” Connor agreed. “I didn’t realize it at first, what was happening. I thought I was just along for the ride. But being in the Watchtower, watching everyone suit up, hit the streets, powers or no powers…I didn’t understand how much I wanted to help — to change things — until you said started pushing me away.”

“To protect you.”

“Just because someone’s in a dangerous situation doesn’t mean they’re not protected,” Connor said, quietly. “I know why you didn’t want me to get stuck in all of this, but it’s what I want. I can’t sit on my hands and let everyone else take care of it, that’s not who I am — that’s not who you taught me to be, and I’m done trying to pretend like it is. _That’s_ why I’m doing it.”

Oliver listened. He really did. The point of asking, besides confirming what he already knew, deep down, was to hear Connor say it out loud. To hear the conviction in his voice, this determination to be _more_ that prevented him from sticking to the ordinary life of a teenager. It was worrying as hell, but it was as honest as they’d ever been with each other, and Oliver had enough experience with family and compassionate lies to know that they never lasted for long.

So he nodded, stepping up to the center of the sparring floor. “Do you remember what I told you when we first met?” he asked.

Connor looked slightly surprised that his answers had been accepted without question. “Vaguely, but in my defence, I _was_ meeting the Green Arrow.”

“I told you that a father should be there, for guidance, or comfort, whatever you need, whenever you need it. I told you that I was going to earn the right to call myself your dad, and I meant it,” Oliver said, very seriously. “Which means I’ve failed you.”

Connor’s head jerked up at that. “What?”

“I’ve failed you,” he repeated. “Two very important people reminded me recently what it means to owe someone a duty, and I was so caught up in keeping you safe that I forgot what it means to be your father. It’s not enough for me to keep you out of danger, I have to protect you. It’s a duty I can’t delegate to anyone else — not Barry, not Cisco, and not Caitlin. That’s what fathers do, and that’s what I’m going to teach you.”

Connor still looked like everything was happening in a realm of disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

Oliver smiled, and continued as if he had never been interrupted. “But since you’re probably as stubborn as I am, I will have to make _sure_ you understand that lesson,” he said. “Starting — _now_.”

He lunged, and Connor threw up his hands in time to block the blow, but it still landed hard enough to make him grit his teeth. “Are you serious?” he demanded.

“Very,” Oliver said, and hurled his son across the room.

* * *

“So…Oliver and Connor are fighting,” Curtis observed, eyeing the surveillance monitors with no small amount of trepidation. “Should I be worried that the Green Arrow and Arrow Jr. are fighting each other?”

Felicity finished off another caps-heavy text to Constantine, one of the many in a string of unanswered messages that hopefully meant he was driving his cab to the Watchtower responsibly, not day-drinking at a bar somewhere and screening his calls.

“When did everyone start calling Connor _Arrow Jr._?” she asked, tucking her phone into her back pocket. “It bugs me that people are just coming up with names left and right.”

Cisco waved a hand. “Hello? Names guy, right here. Master of Ceremonies — you can’t come up with a cool name without _this_.”

“Oracle. Green Arrow. Spartan. Arsenal. Red Arrow,” she recited. “Literally _every_ name around here.”

“You know, for a team that already calls itself _Arrow_ , you guys sure recycle the same words a lot of the time,” Cisco retorted. “It’s like if all of us started calling ourselves _Flash_ , but Yellow Flash, Green Flash —”

“Isn’t that what the _Pirates_ movie used to bring back Johnny Depp?” Curtis inquired.

“Shut up.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Felicity said, before they could descend into a pop culture-heavy bicker fest. “How many times have you tested out this flashlight, Cisco?”

“You mean the concentrated hyper-wattage solar emitter?” he corrected gleefully.

Curtis made a sound like a truth buzzer. “As someone with two degrees, I can confirm — that _is_ a flashlight. A very nice one — I mean, dwarf star alloy, _hello?_ — but really, it’s a super-concentrated flashlight that can fry your eyeballs off.”

Cisco turned it on him. “Don’t make me use this.”

“ _Cisco_ ,” Felicity said. “How many test runs?”

He twitched his fingers, staring at the ceiling in a silent mental count. “Well, today’s Wednesday, which would make it one, two… _none_.”

“ _None?_ ” Curtis said.

“So does it even work?” Felicity asked, eyeing the machine with fresh wariness.

Cisco made a game attempt at shrugging, which was evidently more difficult while hauling a hunk of metal and wiring the size of a small pig. “I mean, the solar emitter’s just one of the options. I threw together some gauntlets as a backup, and _then_ you have the arrowheads. We’ve got our bases covered, girl. Don’t worry about it.”

“Unfortunately, that’s in my job description,” Felicity muttered, pulling out her phone again. “Why do you think Oliver et. al are still alive and kicking?”

“I thought that was the protein shakes,” Curtis said.

Felicity ignored that, already tapping out another text. “Where the frack is John? We can’t start without him. Well, we could, but that would defeat the purpose of testing out the darkness-repelling technology without said darkness, which equals winging the situation, _again_.”

“Is that what I sound like when I talk to myself?” Curtis whispered.

“ _Yes_ ,” Cisco and Felicity answered in unison.

The elevators chose that very moment to part, admitting the self-proclaimed tinkerer (maybe dabbler) with the dark arts himself. “Did I not say, when I signed your bloody contract and handed over my pound of flesh, that I was _never_ to be called into work before the witching hour?” he said, with a slight but pronounced slur. “What time d’you call this?”

“An emergency,” Felicity said shortly. “And BTW, there’s very little consensus among the neopagan community about the actual time of the witching hour, so technically, you could have made something up yourself.”

Constantine grunted. “I knew there was a reason I liked you, love,” he said, making his way across the basement floor.

He passed Cisco on the way, who coughed and beat the air in front of his nose like it was on fire. “That’s not all he likes,” he commented. “Dude, it’s two in the afternoon.”

“Oh, so it can read time,” Constantine said nastily. “I thought all it did was tinker with toys.”

Well versed in the warning signs, Felicity slapped a hand onto Cisco’s giant flashlight before he could set it off on Constantine. “Play nice, boys. John — you said you could work up something to interfere with the Shade’s magic?”

Constantine reached into his coat, but it turned out to be in search of a cigarette and a lighter. “Maybe,” he said, puffing a cloud of smoke in their direction. “I’ll need a garden hose around the room and a source of running water.”

“Nuh-uh,” Curtis said. “If it’s the vault at QI, there’s gonna be electronics everywhere. _Bad_ idea.”

“No water,” Felicity agreed. “Next?”

Constantine puffed again, thinking. “Stones from a creek, something to draw runes with — doesn’t have to be blood — a bit of graveyard dirt, and the ash from burnt feathers.”

A part of Felicity wondered if he was kidding. “Sold,” she said. “Now where do we find…all _that_?”

“I’m kinda on bad terms with my resident feather dealer,” Curtis said. “He tried to sell me turkey tail feathers instead of goose.”

After a pregnant pause, Cisco pulled his phone out. “ _Ok Google_ ,” he said self-consciously.

* * *

“The new taekwondo coach,” Oliver said.

Sweat rolled down the side of Connor’s face and dripped onto his wrist. He’d lost his jacket a while back, and the old bruises from the week before were still yellow on his forearms, subject to complete scrutiny by his eagle-eyed dad. “There’s a reason — I — wear — long — sleeves,” he grunted, trying to force the blow off (an extra fifty pounds of muscle went a long way in fights). “Taekwondo coach was actually a drug dealer in the train yard.”

“Oh,” Oliver said, and whirled.

Connor barely had time to block the rapid-fire swing. Canes and staff connected with a series of crisp snaps. _One, two_ — _block_.

He _swore_ one of the canes made a cracking sound when they crashed together again, holding off a Bo staff to the forehead.

“Good.” Oliver gave the crossed weapons a small push, as though to test Connor’s ability to stand his ground. “What about that weekend you went climbing in the crags, and you came back with a sprained shoulder?”

“Yeah, there’s no afterschool climbing team, and the sprained shoulder was actually two cracked ribs from helping bust up a trafficking cartel,” Connor admitted, not entirely sure if he was on board with this truth game. “If it helps, I ran through my mom’s supply of _Tylenol: Menstrual Relief_ in two days.”

“It really doesn’t,” Oliver said, and swung.

Connor made as if to deflect a headshot, but his dad was faster, and the move turned out to be a feint. Which he totally fell for. The Bo staff thunked him solidly on the back of the hand, and Connor stumbled back with a muffled expletive.

“ _Ow_ ,” he hissed, trying very hard not to hop up and down while holding onto his stinging hand. “What kind of dick move was that?”

Contrary to popular expectations (and prior training sessions), his dad looked _very_ far from remorseful, and stooped to pick up the canes that Connor had dropped after being whacked on the knuckles. “It’s the kind of move I make when I’m not pulling my punches,” he said, and rolled them back towards him.

“You don’t say.” Connor gingerly readjusted his grip on the weapons. “And besides a lack of warm and fuzzy feelings, what exactly am I supposed to be learning?”

Oliver’s expression was mostly serious, but a glimmer of amusement did show, behind the _I’m going to kill you_ face from training. “Choosing this life, a mask, is going to involve a lot of hard choices. You’re going to get hurt sometimes, and when that happens, you can’t pretend like nothing’s wrong. That’s where trust comes in.”

“You mean the _fun_ game we were just playing?” Connor responded acidly.

“It’s not a game, Connor. I’m your dad, and I’m only finding out what happened to you _now_.” Oliver swung the Bo staff level with Connor’s chin, as though he was about to jab him. “What if you dislocated a shoulder? What if you had gotten shot? If you go out into the field, you need to have someone to check on you, after. Even if you learn how to stitch yourself up, there are just some things you can’t do alone.”

“That’s what STAR Labs is — _was_ — for,” he muttered. “They took care of me.”

“Everyone at STAR Labs is used to someone who can heal at an accelerated rate,” Oliver pointed out. “And no matter what you say, Caitlin and Cisco are Barry’s teammates. They’re his team, before yours.”

 _Ouch_. As little as Connor liked to hear it, he knew his dad had a point. Not that they hadn’t been welcoming, but at the end of the day, he was still a teenager in a room of adults. They may have treated him like one, but he wasn’t blind to the way Cisco and Caitlin spoke to Barry, the way they could predict what he needed — and vice versa — before they’d even said a word.

The thought made him feel smaller and more alone than ever. Oliver’s scary eyebrows softened, and he lowered the staff back to his side. Connor was too distracted to flinch when his dad lifted a hand and did something completely out of character with the ongoing theme of _tough love_.

He put his hand — gently — at the top of Connor's head. It was a gesture Oliver hadn't done in a while, not since Connor had gotten tall enough to go shoulder to shoulder with him, and stopped going voluntarily for hugs. His dad's hand was a solid weight at the back of his skull, a strangely comforting reminder that there was still someone protecting him in a world that wasn't always friendly.

“My point,” Oliver said. “Knowing who to trust is vital. I have Felicity and John and my sister and Roy. We all keep each other alive the best we can, and I trust them all with my life.”

Connor thought back to something Felicity had said to him, when he’d been moping around behind the comms. About uncle John and herself, finding Oliver at the right time, for the right reasons.

If the two of them — his dad and Felicity — had coordinated their attacks, then kudos. But he had a feeling they were just that annoyingly, _cheesily_ , in sync.

“You’re telling me to find my own team,” he said.

Oliver nodded. “I’m telling you that this kind of life isn’t something you can do alone, and you need a team of people who will always — _always_ — be guarding your side. Just like you’ll be guarding theirs. I’m saying that team could be us: me, your uncles, your aunt, but I’m also saying that you’ll find others, other people who might become _your_ family. I know from experience that those people are the ones who make a world of difference, in the end.”

“ _Vigilante Team Wanted_ ,” Connor joked. “That’s a Craigslist ad in the making. So… _trust_ , _not alone_ , that’s two lessons. Any chance you have a third?”

Oliver smiled. “I think I do,” he said. “This job is about trusting the people who have chosen to go at it with you, but it’s also about yourself. Learning, always learning on the job. You don’t have powers. You don’t have super strength, or magic —”

“— well, it’s still early —”

“— so the first thing keeping you alive is always yourself,” he continued, as though there had been no interruption. “And what you learn in this job, from the mistakes you make and the people you face, will be the difference between life and death, between critical injury and walking away unscathed.”

Call it muscle memory, but Connor was ready when Oliver attacked this time, and he managed to counter head-on with the first blow, block the second, and dodge the third.

“Good,” Oliver said. “You’re learning.”

“I try.”

It was exactly the wrong thing to say, because Oliver shoved the staff behind his knee and swept his legs clean out from under him. Connor twisted once, mid-air, and landed flat on his face with a groan.

Oliver tapped the Bo staff against the ground, watching him. “These are my conditions. If you are going to pick up that bow again, you will be doing it under my watch. And before you say anything, trust me, Felicity has a way of finding out whether you’re suiting up without me. I will speak to Cisco about options — and depending on how viable his…”

“ _Zeta_ ,” Connor volunteered. “Matter transfer by Zeta radiation.”

“Yes, thank you. Depending on how viable that is, if he manages to install it, you will be doing a short commute to fight crime in the streets of Starling. Until then, it’s boot camp. I have a lot to teach you, and I think we can agree that you’d benefit from the instruction. Does that sound fair?”

There were many quips or snarky comebacks Connor might have responded with, but maybe it was the weirdness of the situation (his dad _actually_ agreeing to train him, or because the Green Arrow himself was offering him a chance to learn, for real, that all the possible answers were just _gone_ from his mind.

Except one.

Connor reached up and gripped Oliver’s outstretched arm. “Hell yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I explained the general idea of the problem okay. I was reading something on non-delegable duties for tort and the idea stuck in my head about how that's a lot like Oliver's relationship with Connor. Kind of a duty to act situation.
> 
> Season 4 Finale:   
> \- I'm actually pretty happy with the way the season ended. Sure, Olicity wasn't back together, but I'm not bothered about that. There wasn't enough time to finish off that story anyway. Bring on the fics about copious UST and Olicity in the lair!  
> \- I personally would have preferred Thea and Felicity getting more of a conclusive storyline. Nothing says "I have no idea what to do with this character" like ending a season arc with Thea Queen on a couch. A bloody COUCH.  
> \- Ditto with Felicity's dad, the fallout from the nuke, and being fired from Palmer Tech. Brushed under the rug.  
> \- The writers must really love John Barrowman because I cannot understand how Malcolm manages to just "show up" in the lair and nobody questions it, despite pretty much everyone wanting to kill him for 20-odd episodes.  
> \- Flashback girl died, in the most underwhelming way possible.  
> \- The post-mortem rewrite of Laurel Lance continues. I see why the scenes where she gets mentioned might annoy people, but honestly they just show me that the writers wanted the character who died to be Oliver's moral compass. John Diggle fits that bill, not Laurel (no matter how much they try to convince me otherwise), so I'm very happy that they didn't go down that road. OTA lives!  
> \- If Lyla's expression is anything to go by, Dyla's going to hit a rough patch. Nuuuuuu. But Diggle gets a story.  
> \- Very proud of where Oliver's at. That's probably what I'm happiest with. He's conflicted, but he's learning that it's okay to have two sides of himself. *sniffs* He's growing up.  
> Overall: Very ready for season 5, but also kind of okay with having a break for now. Arrow seasons are pretty exhausting, and I reeeeeaally want the writers to get the Bratva flashbacks right. Please. Please don't repeat this season's debacle. *crosses fingers*


	28. RAT

“I like your opening statement, but I think you need to come off stronger on crime,” Felicity said, paging through Oliver’s handwritten notes. “You need to hit Celia Castle with the fact that she hasn’t been keeping the city safe — you have. With the help of some very smart people, but still. Mostly you.”

Oliver gave her a look from his seat on the window ledge, his favorite spot whenever he swung by for an office visit. “You get violent when you talk about debates.”

Felicity balanced the notepad on her knee and reached for the half-eaten salad she’d left on the desk. “I don’t shoot arrows and I don’t scream like a banshee,” she said, spearing a cherry tomato like it had personally done her a wrong. “My only superpower is my brain, and it’s telling you to hit harder. You know she’s going to bring up the whole playboy, billionaire dummy part of your past, so I say fight fire with fire.”

Oliver exhaled, rolling his neck the way he did whenever she made a suggestion he didn’t quite agree with. “Just seems a little low,” he said. “The Justice League wouldn’t be operating the way it does if the city didn’t give it that freedom in the first place.”

“Chicken, egg,” she returned. “The Justice League wouldn’t have formed at all if super villains didn’t have a nasty habit of trying to destroy the world every year. Super villains wouldn’t be making headway at destroying the world if city leadership kept a better handle on corruption and general apathy. Chicken, egg. I say you hit her, _hard_.”

Oliver smiled like he wasn’t quite sure whether to be unnerved or appreciative of her fiery debate stance. “You should be running for mayor, not me.”

Felicity _hm_ -ed, scooping a generous dollop of mayo with one of Oliver’s fries. “But I’m pure evil, remember?” she said.

Oliver leaned down to kiss her, unfazed by the general lunch-eating. “Devil’s in the details,” he agreed.

“Oliver, my hands,” she laughed, waving her greasy fingertips. “The candidate can’t have salad dressing and mayo down the front of his shirt.”

“Depends on how they got there,” Oliver said, loosening his tie with tremendous unconcern. “I wouldn’t mind…if I was in a particularly _giving_ mood.”

Given past experience involving her desk and a locked door, Felicity wasn’t deaf to the implications of his statement, and pointedly re-crossed her legs, looking up at him as though she couldn’t _imagine_ what was in his head.

That being said, Oliver leaning over her chair, getting very much in her personal space in the process…extremely tempting.

“You came here so we could go over the debate,” she reminded him. “Doing… _that_ is not going to help your campaign at all, Mr. Queen.”

Oliver made a noise of disagreement. “Depends on how you define _help_.”

Before they could get _anywhere_ near impropriety (or smudging her lipstick), her phone started to buzz.

Cue a stare-off, which was its own kind of funny, given the fact that Oliver was almost on his knees in front of her chair.

“You could probably ignore that,” he suggested.

Before Felicity shove the phone into her drawer, her computer joined in the general noisiness, with the kind of urgent DEFCON-4 beeping she most certainly would not have installed, had she known about the buzzkill potential.

“I could probably ignore that too,” she remarked, reaching for the _sleep_ button.

Her thumb was nowhere near the keyboard when the screen dissolved into conference call mode, startling her back into her chair with a yelp. “I can’t ignore _that_.”

“Is that even possible?” Oliver asked, partially looking over his shoulder.

Felicity had no idea, but when she saw the face on the other end of the call, she was exactly _zero_ percent surprised.

“You couldn’t have texted?” she said, with a reciprocal level of politeness.

Despite it being the middle of the day, Bruce was in his _other_ workspace, the one with natural geological protrusions and a lot more bats than were probably okay, health-and-safety-wise.

He also looked — by his standards, anyway — very displeased.

“We need to talk,” he said, in his scary voice. “ _Now_.”

* * *

Oliver peered at one of Felicity’s ongoing investigations, half-listening to her argument with Bruce. In his prior experience, the two of them could debate in a different language (at a different _frequency_ , even) and it was always easier to let them settle it on their terms before he got involved.

In stark contrast to the easygoing mood of an impromptu office lunch, her office was now in ORACLE mode, reinforced steel over the windows and doors, a constant stream of information in the form of screens on every wall. The workstation in front of him showed the up-to-date progress on the various threads and clues Felicity had been pursuing on Slade Wilson. As predicted, she’d made short work of the names Sara had handed over, and the heavily encrypted data trails looked promising, at least to his understanding of her capabilities.

“You installed an override on my computer?” she said, visibly irritated. “Not cool, Bruce. Not. Cool.”

“It’s only an automatic response option for emergency calls,” he answered. “For things that can’t wait — which this is. When were you going to tell me about what happened in Central City?”

Felicity shot a hasty glance in Oliver’s direction.

“Don’t even try it,” Bruce said, obviously sensing the evasion. “Dick heard about it from Harper. When were you going to tell me?”

“Eventually, I guess.” Felicity shrugged like she couldn’t help herself. “But I mean, it’s not really an office memo situation. It’s really hard to put that in an email. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure we _have_ all of their emails. Constantine doesn’t even answer texts promising food and booze —”

“Oliver.”

He turned silently and faced Bruce on the screen. They’d known each other long enough — an uneven first year of mutual acquaintance and several collaborations since — for him to recognize when Bruce Wayne was doing some very hard thinking.

“Is this something you’ll reconsider?” he asked.

They were both watching him; Bruce and Felicity. The latter already knew his answer, and she gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod of her head. Support, even if she might not agree completely with what he’d chosen.

“No,” Oliver said, his voice flat and emotionless. “It’s done.”

“All right.” Bruce leaned back slightly in his chair, his eyes fixed on something beyond the screen. He was a strategist as much as he was a detective, and Oliver knew that his comparatively distant role in the Justice League didn’t mean he was any less concerned with the outcome. “Do you have contingencies?”

“ _Bruce_ ,” Felicity said.

He looked unrepentant at the disapproval in her voice. “I respect the both of you too much to lie. The Green Arrow has had an irreparable falling-out with the Flash. That’s two founding members, and the Justice League looks to them both. If there comes a time when they're on opposite sides, everyone in between will be forced to choose.”

Judging from the expression on Felicity's face, the same thought had occurred to her long before Bruce ever brought it to their attention.

“Barry and Oliver would never do that,” she said, her hand on Oliver’s arm. “What happened is between _them_ , not the Justice League.”

Bruce looked unconvinced. “You of all people are smart enough to know there’s not always a choice. There’s nothing more dangerous than two human beings who believe in irreconcilable ideas, and have the power to back it up. I need to know what Oliver plans to do when that happens.”

“Then I guess it’s lucky there’s nothing forcing them to choose,” she retorted, her voice hard.

“Yet,” Bruce added. “Cadmus is a common enemy, so is Slade Wilson, and this meta you’ve been tracking. But it won’t always be the case. People react unexpectedly when emotion becomes a factor. You know Allen — from before and after he became the Flash. Do you have contingencies?”

Oliver looked at Bruce for the longest time without speaking, before nodding. “I do,” he confirmed. “But none of them are active. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, I would,” Bruce replied. “I have a file on everyone in the Justice League and I have no qualms about using the information in my hands. If they become a threat, then everything will change.”

“I don’t think you can call independent consulting _signing on_ ,” Felicity commented acidly. “Is that why you called? To remind us that you’d turn on everyone if necessary?”

“That was my condition when I signed on. I’m only here as long as you fight for the right reasons. When the League stops being about protecting the people, that’s the end for me.” Bruce’s voice was unchanged, the same cool determination of someone surveying the situation from a distance.

“I remember why you signed on,” Oliver said quietly. “And I understand why you’d walk away. But it won’t come to that. The people, family...they come first.”

Bruce plainly didn’t share the same view, but he nodded anyway. “Just so we understand each other. Now what’s this I hear about Lex paying you a visit?”

Felicity threw up her hands. “Do you get _all_ of your information from Roy’s drinking sessions with Dick?”

“Perks of keeping things in the family,” Bruce said. “My children tell me things.”

“Yes, I dropped the flash drive in hot coffee,” Felicity answered. “LexCorp makes military technology, Bruce, of _course_ I knew a cup of lukewarm Starbucks wasn’t going to make a dent. It was the _gesture_.”

“You couldn’t have saved the dramatic gestures for later?” he said, unimpressed.

“Okay, from a guy who dresses up as a _bat_ and runs around stringing criminals up by their ankles, I didn’t think I’d have to defend the use of dramatics in front of you.” Felicity shook her head a little. “Lex knows we — and by that I mean mostly me — have been hacking his system. He was practically waving a flag in my face, but I can’t tell if the reference he made to Tommy being kidnapped was on purpose or a product of some _truly_ annoying verbal tics. And yes, before you ask, I do see the irony of that statement.”

“Might have been an intimidation move,” Oliver suggested, half-turning to look at them (he’d gone back to studying the monitors across the room). “Lex struck me as the kind of person who likes to protect his ego. He was being hacked for months — it might have been a way for him to salvage the pieces.”

“I agree,” Bruce said. “Lex is smart, but not smart enough to know when to quit. I’d be very interested to see why he gave you that flash drive if he knew you were never going to run an actual investigation.”

“Hm.” Felicity’s reluctance appeared short-lived, because she swiveled in her chair to face Oliver. “Hun, could you hand me that bag? Third drawer. Blue plastic. Can’t miss it.”

Oliver hastily did as she asked, but the only blue bag in the drawer had been written on in thick black marker. “This says _TOXIC WASTE_ ,” he read.

Felicity shrugged a shoulder, her hand out to take it. “The bag came that way.”

Oliver held it up, skepticism on full display. “It’s your writing.”

Felicity ignored him, and shook the contents out of the bag. “One coffee-stained flash drive,” she said, giving it a shake as though she was expecting it to be wet. “Let’s see what _Wannabe Evil Incorporated_ tried to mess with.”

“You did manage to pull data off a bullet-ridden hard drive,” Oliver pointed out. “A bit of coffee shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Your faith in my abilities is touching, husband dearest.” Felicity laid the hard drive onto the table surface and swept her fingertips across the glass. “ORACLE, scan and isolate. Skeleton map only, using _complete_ vacuum configuration. I’m not letting LexCorp anywhere near my systems.”

“You think it’s some kind of…hack?” Oliver asked.

Felicity narrowed her eyes at whatever she was seeing, scrolling lines of white code against a dark screen. “I think someone wants to play,” she said, and tapped on a key. “ _There_. Bruce, are you seeing this?”

“I am,” he confirmed.

Oliver was completely accustomed to being the one asking questions whenever Felicity worked with someone who coded too. “What is it?”

“It’s a RAT,” she said. “Remote Access Trojan. It’s the virus I implanted into his system to download and copy files, but he’s changed some of the coding. It’s supposed to look like it’s been deactivated, so I won’t notice —”

“—that he’s turning it on you,” Oliver finished. “Good thing you know your own coding, then.”

Felicity smiled briefly at him. “I’ll do you one better. Most hackers have a pattern — Cooper, Bruce, even me. _This_ recoding — even if it’s mostly mine — could tell me how Lex Luthor does his hacking.”

“Not up to standard, apparently,” Bruce remarked.

“Well, nobody’s perfect.” Felicity was typing again. “But, on the upshot, Lex Luthor may end up regretting the day he decided to hack Queen Industries. Especially since its CEO can be a real bitch with Wi-Fi.”

Oliver turned to look at his wife. “You get violent when you talk about hacking, too.”

* * *

“I don’t like it,” Oliver said.

For someone hanging off a metal bar seven or eight feet off the ground, he sounded remarkably _not_ out of breath. Not _remarkable_ in the sense that she wasn’t used to their chats in the mansion’s basement lair, usually while he was on the salmon ladder and she was working (or pretending to) somewhere within the sightline, but _remarkable_ in the sense that beautiful things needed to be appreciated.

And this was one of them. Very much so.

Was she drooling?

Felicity reached across the worktable for her cup of coffee. “I can’t tell if I should be offended,” she said, hastily checking her lipstick to see if she’d left her mouth hanging open for too long.

Oliver swung gracefully from one notch to the next and straightened his arms, letting his weight hang. His chest — helpfully shirtless — swelled and dipped with each steady breath. “You shouldn’t,” he answered. “But I’m allowed to be worried if a plan involves you acting as bait. It was in my…vows.”

Felicity snorted at the lame coverup for what was basically a husband-sized Oliver Queen freakout. “No it wasn’t, and I’m not bait. Once I update company records to show where the quantum stabilizer really is, I will just _happen_ to be sitting near my personal vault in Queen Industries, with Curtis, totally unprepared for any shadow-related shenanigans that may or may not happen near said vault. And I won’t be alone. You’ll be there.”

“In the _lobby_ ,” he stressed. “Which brings me back to my point — I don’t like it.”

“Noted,” she said. “You’ll just be one elevator ride away.”

“And does it have to be — the real stabilizer? Can’t you just — lure the Shade in — with a copy?” he asked, between swings on the salmon ladder.

“You know, it hurts me that you even have to ask,” she muttered. “As much as I like blackjack, I’m not gambling on something like this.”

“I thought it’s never gambling when you play?” he inquired.

She snapped her fingers at him. “Very true. Which goes towards my point that you should trust my — I mean, _the_ — plan.”

Oliver dropped neatly onto the ground and went to reclaim his shirt, which Felicity had been helpfully keeping half an eye on. She got to her feet with it now, and they met somewhere in the middle.

Shirtless, sweaty, heavy-breathing Oliver was one of her favorite kinds, but they were talking about something that demanded focus. Hard-fought, occasionally wandering focus.

She really wished he wasn’t standing with his hands on his hips.

“So why the frowny-face?” she asked.

“I trust you,” he began, like that was the bottom line. “It’s just…we don’t know everything the Shade’s capable of. Once we spring this trap, whoever’s hacking QI will be onto us.”

“Right. Now or never,” Felicity said, with a shrug. “That’s never stopped us before.”

“But the only thing stopping the meta from disappearing is some dirt, ash, and rock.”

“With runes on them,” she added, pretending to write on the air with a Sharpie. “John drew runes on them.”

Oliver’s expression made his doubts excessively evident. “John Constantine defies belief, but I’m not sure his magic can be trusted if you call him in on a Wednesday afternoon. Did he sound drunk?”

“He does his best magic when he’s drunk,” she said, waving her hand. “Remember that protection spell he used on you at the holiday party?”

“You mean when he threw some lint in my face, mumbled something unintelligible, and I sprained my ankle a week later?” he said flatly. “I remember _that_.”

Felicity squinted at the ceiling. “We must be thinking of different Christmukkah parties.”

Oliver reached up and brushed her cheek with the pad of his thumb, gently tipping her face up to his. “I’m allowed to be worried,” he repeated, just lower and softer, Oliver at a different RPM.

Felicity knew that. “I know you’re sleeping even less than you usually do, and I _know_ everything with Slade has you rattled, but you need to have some faith in people,” she said. “You’re doing great with Connor, and John Constantine — inebriation status aside — is not going to do anything except make this plan work.”

Oliver stroked her cheek again, and she took the opportunity to do what she’d been wanting to, since they’d been interrupted that afternoon at her office. She bridged the narrow distance and kissed him softly on the lips, smiling when the tension in his jaw slipped away.

His walls had been up high, but he always found a way to let her in. That — no matter how bad the situation — hadn’t changed.

The back of her shirt edged a few inches upward, baring a strip of skin above her jeans. Oliver’s fingertips burned against her spine, reminding her that sleeping in the same bed as the kids — while a weight off their shoulders in many ways — was its own form of ill-timed (and selfish) frustration.

 _That_ hadn’t changed either.

“We can talk later,” she said, wondering how good she would be at finding the cot if she started walking backwards.

Thankfully, Oliver eliminated that need by scooping her up himself, pulling her legs around his waist. “Later’s good,” he agreed.

* * *

It turned out to be quite a lot of _later_. Felicity checked the clock to gauge how much longer they could stay down in the basement before it was time to tuck the twins into bed.

“Eighteen minutes,” she mumbled, tracing an irregular scar along his ribs.

Oliver was doing nearly the same thing, but with the raised mark where a bullet had gone into her shoulder. Even though it was physically impossible to get any closer, he still readjusted his position in the cot, the two of them relishing the skin-to-skin intimacy of some quiet personal time.

“Thirty-third floor,” she said, after some consideration. “One staircase away from the vault.”

Oliver laughed into her shoulder. “After what we just did, I don’t even get to be in the next room?”

“All the walls are _glass_ ,” she said, squirming as he ran his stubble against her neck. “Even if you dressed up as the Amazon delivery guy, he’d still see you coming from a mile away. This —” she pulled on his bright(ish) hair “— not exactly inconspicuous.”

“Fine.” He growled the word into her skin, rubbing hard enough to make her laugh out loud. “One staircase away.”

Felicity settled back onto the pillow, playing idly with Oliver’s hands, caught in the weird place where she wasn’t ready to get out of bed, but not quite sleepy enough to drift off.

“Since we’re talking about the plan,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “I’m thinking about taking Connor into the field with me.”

Felicity propped herself up on one elbow, intrigued. “Really?” she said. “Are you sure?”

He narrowed his eyes a little, in an _I see you_ kind of way. “I know it’s rare, but I _am_ occasionally capable of growing as a person.”

Felicity realized her mouth was still open and hastily covered it with her hand. "No, no — I'm so proud of you, I swear,” she said, around her fingers. “It’s just… _wow_. I think I owe Roy five bucks.”

“Is there anything you and the team don’t bet on behind my back?” he said sarcastically.

Felicity laughed and kissed the side of his face. “Don’t change the subject. Your untimely character growth just cost me five dollars — you have _got_ to at least tell me the specifics.”

Oliver seemed stubbornly intent on making his step forward Not a Big Deal. “It’s just guarding the perimeter. We’ll be with John the whole time.”

“The responsible one,” she prompted, meaning Diggle.

“The responsible one,” he clarified. “I promised Connor I’d teach him, and he wants to learn.”

“You also want to see how good he really is,” she guessed. “Try out that father-son chemistry in the field. Should I order in some Big Belly for the two of you?”

That got her a poke in _her_ belly, and they were both smiling when they curled up again, settling against each other. “It shouldn’t be too hard,” Oliver said, his head on her shoulder. “Just a stakeout.”

Felicity chuckled, staring up at the rafters. “You never know. I mean, it _is_ us. I have a feeling things might get interesting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Duuuuuuuun. Will it? :P (Jokes, you probably don't care)  
> Until the next update!


	29. Excessively Bad Timing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooooo. Happy Arrow hiatus! Officially free of exams and about to start hopping around some pretty weird time zones this summer.

“Um, I hate to be — _that_ — guy, but I thought the whole point of having a sparring center was so — _whoa_ —”

Curtis snatched his travel mug off the worktable just before Connor crashed onto the steel surface, collapsible (and very metallic) Bo staff in hand.

“Sorry, Curtis,” he panted, and catapulted off the railing with a scattering of loose papers. “This is _awesome_.”

“— was so —”

Curtis never got to finish the thought, because Sara landed squarely on the same spot, silent as a cat. “Watch your back, Baby Arrow,” she called, darting off the table in hot pursuit. “Just because it’s turned doesn’t mean it needs to be open.”

“Stop calling me Baby Arrow!” came the highly witty retort.

Felicity shook her head, watching the training fight from her vantage point on the balcony. “ _Mm_ ,” she said into the comms. “Better comebacks, Connor. There’s a bogey on your six, circle around the cases and you should have a striking advantage.”

Curtis was in the middle of gathering up the scattered papers. “Was so _this_ —”

A projectile flew straight over his head and met the far wall with a thud.

“—was so _this_ didn’t happen,” he finished, raising his head to stare at the dent in the side of a steel ventilation shaft. “Holy frack, are none of you _human_?”

Thea came up from a barrel roll to grab the escrima stick she’d thrown clear across the room. “Strictly speaking — no,” she said, and a grin broke out on her face when she spotted her nephew’s shadow. “But that’s part of the fun.”

“Connor, big bogey, heading straight at you.”

Connor swore and dodged, but just barely. Oliver’s swing whipped over his head with enough of a close-shave whistle to make Felicity’s hair stand on end, and she caught his version of the evil grin (series regular during particularly successful training sessions) as he put his son through the paces of a grilling defence.

Felicity knew what Oliver’s idea of play-fighting looked like, and this was a few notches higher on the tempo, with some pretty solid weaponry to boot.

“Your backhand’s sloppy,” he said, not missing a beat. “Watch your acceleration — you tend to slip up when you’re about to feint.”

“Huh. Really?” Connor answered, and lunged.

His swing went wide, and slammed straight into the valve switch on an exposed pipe behind Oliver’s shoulder. The mini-skirmish ended with a volcano of white steam and Connor ducking straight through the mist, sliding through the gaps in the furniture and vanishing into the shadows again.

As far as training exercises went, it wasn’t the worst thing Felicity had witnessed in the ultimate goal of battle readiness. The Watchtower’s main room — for all the fluorescents and high ceilings — was still full of shaded spots and blind corners, perfect for a hybrid session of five-on-one tag.

Well, one-and-a-half, if they counted the fact that Felicity was on the comms with Oliver’s son, and almost-tag, since she was pretty sure industry regulations didn’t include parkour as an acceptable technique.

“Connor, four o’clock,” Felicity warned. “Coming in hot.”

Connor had been stalking Diggle from a hiding place behind the mannequin cases, and he whirled in confusion at her PSA. “My what — _gargh_!”

In response to his question, Roy brought his weapon down with a crash, and Connor traded a few rapid-fire blows with his uncle, which she was happy to see was becoming nearly instinctive.

“You didn’t hide your shadow,” Roy said. “And when you forget how to hide, _that_ happens.”

“ _That_?”

Connor turned to find Thea blocking his way out.

“What are you gonna do now?” she asked.

Credit where credit was due, as new as he was to the whole boot camp shebang, Connor could think fast. He was just behind the Red Arrow mannequin, and snatched one of the pellets off the belt with enough pickpocketing prowess to make Roy proud. “This,” he said, and smashed it into the ground.

Smoke erupted around the three of them, but Thea and Roy had been in the field too long to be deterred by a mild visibility issue, and there was the sound of solid hand-to-hand combat in the thicket — an exchange that left Connor dashing off with a few fresh welts to his forearms.

Felicity winced in sympathy, well aware of how seriously Team Arrow took their sparring exercises. “I thought the idea of carrying a big heavy stick was to block _with_ said heavy stick,” she remarked, as he skidded under the cover of some worktables.

“Hey, I’m trying here,” Connor said defensively. “But I’ve got five kinds of dangerous wacko coming after me, and I don’t think any of them understand the concept of tag.”

Sara laughed, and the sound echoed. “You’re more of a smartass than your dad,” she said, twirling her black Bo staff in deceptively lazy circles. “Baby Arrow.”

“Don’t answer her,” Felicity said. “She’s trying —”

“Stop calling me that!”

Felicity threw up her hands. “ _And_ you just gave away your position.”

A shadow appeared at Connor’s immediate twelve. “I hope you don’t really think your uncle John’s a wacko,” Diggle said innocently.

Well, as innocently as one could sound, with a huge set of forearms and a formidably battered rattan cane.

Connor looked behind him for the exit route, but Thea and Roy had flanked him, and Sara was closing in.

He said a very bad word. “I’m fenced in. Got any bright ideas, Oracle?”

“A few,” Felicity admitted. “Do you trust me?”

“Uh,” Connor said. “Sure. If this isn’t some kind of weird trick where you’re actually helping the other side.”

“Ha. You give my plot twists too much credit,” she scoffed. “Okay, serious talk. There’s some gear on the table to your eight, and you need to get to it. Remember to lift with your knees.”

“Lift with my knees — _oh_.” Connor dropped the staff and braced himself underneath the steel table in question. “Give me a count?”

“On my mark,” Felicity said, waiting for the others to close in. “Three. Two. _Now_.”

The table flipped over with a bang, scattering its contents across the shiny floor (Curtis might have wheezed a little in sympathy pain for his gadgets). As Diggle and the others stumbled back, Connor dived for the bow and arrow among the debris.

The arrowheads were unmarked, and she heard him muttering the classifications to himself. “Red, green, blue — _oh_.”

Sara landed on the table behind him. “Nice try, kid,” she said, grinning.

Connor twisted around on his back, the arrow locked and loaded. The shot went clean over her shoulder, but so did the grappling cable attached to the shaft, which looped neatly around an exposed steel beam and coiled tight. “Laters,” he said, and shot off the ground with a whoop.

The momentum carried him all the way back to the raised dais, where he slammed feet-first into the steel floor, smiling like it was two years of Christmas in one go. “Does this mean I win?” he asked, surveying the others from behind the railing.

A figure dropped silently behind Connor’s back, and Felicity caught a conspiratorial wink from said sneaky person. “Hey, you might want to —” she began.

Swift and soundless as a jungle cat, Oliver flipped Connor onto one of the tables with a crash, Bo staff underneath his throat.

“And what did you do wrong?” Oliver asked.

Connor sighed, going limp like a starfish. “Forgot to watch my back.”

“You got distracted because you had multiple hostiles,” he said. “Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not there. Learn to sense your enemy’s presence, even if they’re not in your field of vision.”

“About that,” said Connor, holding up his finger ( _not_ a rude one). “You’re still a little vague on how I can grow eyes at the back of my head. I thought that was the whole point of having someone on the comms.”

Oliver looked over his shoulder at Felicity, who waved, leaning over the balcony to oversee the teaching session. They shared a smile, because there was something contagiously _fun_ about passing on the merits of being experienced members of Team Arrow, watching someone full-on geek out over things that were pretty much standard-issue for them.

“Learning to sense your surroundings comes from practice,” Oliver continued. “But having Felicity on comms was to get you used to having someone else be your eyes and ears in the field. If there’s imperfect information on the ground, she’s the one who stops you from getting hurt, so you need to trust the person running point on the mission, even if you don’t always agree with their call.”

“Very important,” Felicity agreed. “Because I’m right ninety-eight percent of the time.”

Oliver dropped the weapon, and offered his hand to Connor.

“Point taken,” he said, struggling back upright with cricks and creaks of sore joints. “How was my landing though?”

“Solid B,” Sara said, reattaching the half-staffs to make the whole, formidable length. “You need to stop landing like you have bells attached to your ankles. Also —” She reached out and ruffled his hair affectionately, to some resistance. “Don’t be such a smartass.”

“But it’s one of my signature moves,” Connor deadpanned, checking the fresh welts and bruises. “Thanks for these, by the way.”

Roy and Thea high-fived each other. “Take you for a rematch anytime, Baby Arrow,” said his aunt. “You need to pick up some unnecessary parkour moves.”

“ _Hey_ ,” said Roy.

Diggle pressed one of the redder welts on Connor’s arm and hissed through his teeth. “That’s a beauty,” he remarked. “Pretty good run, kiddo. You’re getting better at this.”

Diggle was pretty much the only person who could get away with putting his arm around Connor’s shoulders, and he did, making the kid laugh with a knuckle-grinding to the hair.

Oliver rapped the ground with the end of the stick. “Let’s go again.”

Everyone started to shuffle back to square one, but Felicity held up her arms in a huge _X_ motion. “Whoa there, team,” she called, hurrying down the spiral staircase to ground level. “We need to hit pause on the boot camp craziness. Operation Lights Out goes live tonight, and everyone needs to get into costume — so to speak.”

Curtis practically cheered in relief. “Oh thank god. I’m too tall to fit under this,” he said, crawling out from a refuge space underneath one of the desks.

“Cool,” Connor said, looking around at everyone else. “How can I help?”

* * *

“You know, if we weren’t such good friends, I’d be a little offended that you’re keeping me on perimeter,” Sara said.

Oliver hadn’t heard her come up behind him. He was in the process of cleaning up the disorder caused by the training session, which — among others — was a scattering of arrows all over the ground and overturned tables. “Sorry, but Felicity makes the plans for a reason. I’ve been told that subtlety is not one of my stronger qualities.”

Sara chuckled. “I know. She told me the situation was a little too volatile for my powers at ground level,” she said, patting her throat. “No one wants all the windows blown out of a skyscraper by a sonic scream.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have said it like _that_.”

Stepping delicately around the mess, Sara crouched to help him gather the fallen gear. “You’re a good teacher,” she said, sorting through the color-coding on the shafts in imitation of his usual system. “Better than how you were with Roy.”

Oliver snorted. “Connor’s a fast learner, and my _mentoring_ included shooting Roy at the back of the leg to stop him from going out in the field. That’s not saying very much.”

Instead of taking the deflection for what it was, Sara rolled her eyes, tapping him on the knee with the point of an arrow. “Are you capable of taking a compliment like a normal person?”

“Since when was I normal?” he answered, and they laughed.

It was a bright moment, like the one they’d had at the campaign office, but much like that, Oliver knew Sara too well to be surprised at what she was thinking. She’d wanted to get him alone for a reason. Her smile faded, and he braced himself for whatever she’d come to talk to him about.

“It’s a good thing, what you’re doing here with Connor,” she said carefully. “And I know the Justice League’s gotten too big for you to have just one thing on your plate — not that it was ever really an option. But it would be…a _mistake_ to forget that all this sparring is just fun and games compared to what _he’s_ capable of.”

 _He_ , like the name was a dangerous word, a spark near easy kindling, emotion to crack the veneer of calm. After years of being free of the island, neither Sara nor Oliver had quite managed to shake the effect — and the scars — left by Slade Wilson. It was an ingrained response to lose their cool, just as it was Slade’s ingrained response to hate with blind rage.

“Sara, I haven’t forgotten about Slade,” Oliver said. “I know he’s still out there, and I know he has a lot to answer for. But I can’t do what I did the last time he was loose — narrowing my field of vision to what Slade wanted me to see almost cost me everything. I can’t do it, and I won’t.”

“I’m not saying you should.” Sara shook her head, but her fist was clenched tight around the cluster of arrows. “I’m saying that we can’t afford to waste time on this meta — it’s time we don’t have. So do what you have to do, but do it fast.”

Oliver nodded. “Okay.”

But Sara wasn’t finished. She looked down at her hands, and back at him, her stare unflinchingly direct. “And this time I think…I think all of us need to consider a more permanent solution for dealing with Slade Wilson.”

A part of him had expected her to suggest it; even Felicity had broached the subject, though it had been strategy shaded by the instincts of a mother protective of her son. Sara was thinking strictly as a fighter, and from a purely logical perspective, if a dangerous mass-murderer with a personal vendetta had escaped with the help of outside forces, entities well aware of his ability to meet the Oliver head on — killing Slade Wilson was the simplest, and most preventative solution.

That one move would take care of a serious threat, and at this point — with the disconnect between Starling and Central City’s branches of the Justice League — Oliver knew that the last thing they needed was destructive interventions from hostile outsiders.

It made sense.

It was something long overdue.

It would make the bad dreams stop.

Just…

 _Just_.

It wasn’t his voice he heard this time, but Felicity’s. They were supposed to find a way through. Another way. That was what they did, and that was who they were. They were meant to be accountable, they were meant to follow rules — rules that they had no right to break, like executing a man in cold blood.

“Think about it,” Sara said, and got to her feet. “Good thing you’re here — I think I just made the mess messier.”

She was speaking to someone over Oliver’s shoulder, and from the inflection in her voice — a rare soft spot she reserved for only a few — he didn’t need to guess who it was.

“Sorry,” Felicity said apologetically. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You weren’t,” Sara promised. “Good luck tonight. I'll be listening.”

Felicity made a game attempt at a wink. “Any reason to have you inside me,” she answered, and winced. “Imagine I said that in a different way.”

Sara laughed and surprised the both of them by kissing Felicity on the cheek. “You’re cute,” she said. “Catch you later.”

She brushed Oliver’s shoulder on her way out, and they were alone again.

“How’s Connor?” he asked.

Felicity was fidgeting with the ledge of an overturned table, her fingernails tapping _rat-tat_ on the steel. “Oh, you know. Nervous about his first undercover shenanigan. QI’s janitorial department doesn’t have the most flattering uniform. I thought Roy was going to bust his appendix from laughing.”

Although the premise of Connor’s involvement had begun with perimeter watch, necessity — and the fact that Felicity had some very motivated employees — meant that they needed a ruse to clear the floors adjacent to the private lab, just in case things went south. Unfortunately for most of the team, they were all easily recognizable on company property, enough to draw suspicion they didn’t need.

Which meant that Connor’s role had seen a slight expansion to _decoy_.

“We should probably remind Roy about the disguises he’s had over the years,” Oliver suggested. “Just to play fair.”

Felicity smiled as Oliver got to his feet and slipped his arms around her waist, the two of them standing together in the middle of the chaotic headquarters. She brushed the roughness of his beard with her fingertips, tracing the lines of his jaw and cheekbones, studying him in uncharacteristic silence. “You’re okay with this, right?” she said. “With Connor, learning from everyone. I think I saw what _might_ be considered happiness, y’know, if we stretched the definition a teensy bit.”

Oliver laughed, looking over her head as he considered his answer — even if the scene was one of general dishevelment, overturned furniture and dents in the walls, to name a few. “I _am_ happy. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder to teach anyone in my life, but I’m also terrified that something could go wrong. What do you call that?”

“Being a _total_ trainwreck,” she said, very seriously.

His face fell. “Really?”

“No.” She cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand and stood on tiptoes to give him a kiss. “It’s called having a full spectrum of emotions, and I’m very proud of you for growing them. Not a pair, _in that way_ , because your pair is fine, I should know — what I _mean_ is you’re certified fully functional. Felicity-certified. I lost my train of thought.”

“Hm.” Oliver tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and followed the curve of her skin until he felt the small shiver at the base of her spine, a faint tremor against the palm of his other hand. His thumb pressed on her chin and her lips parted slightly, in a way that made him think of other things. “Maybe I could…help you find it.”

Felicity’s answer wasn’t of the verbal variety, but in all fairness, smiling was easier to do while kissing someone, and in light of the situation at home, any moment alone was something to be taken full advantage of.

They were getting a little carried away, and Oliver pushed a little harder than he’d meant to, which made Felicity thrust a hand out to stop them both from stumbling. She caught the edge of the overturned table and it dragged across the ground with an echoing screech.

Felicity yelped and pressed her forehead to Oliver’s shoulder, the two of them laughing breathlessly.

“Should we —?”

Oliver nodded.

“Wanna help me with this?” she asked, gesturing at the table.

Reluctant as he was to let go, Oliver acknowledged the rationality of the suggestion, and circled around to the far side, grasping one of the table legs. “One — _two_ —”

They heaved together, and the legs landed on the ground with a crash. Felicity smoothed the palm of her hand across the glossy steel, retrieving some of the scattered equipment with the other.

“I might have overheard a little bit of that,” she said lightly. “The whole _what to do about Slade_ thing.”

Her tone was a cautious attempt not to alter the tenor of the conversation, but it did anyway. The easy intimacy of the moment retreated in the face of it, and the air seemed to sharpen at the mention of Slade, the edges prickling at his skin.

Oliver laid a handful of arrows on the table, and immediately reached out to still the ones that rolled towards the edge. “And what do you think?” he asked, his palms flat against the cold steel.

Felicity plucked an arrowhead from the stack and ran it between her fingers while she chose her words. Her face was still flushed from his kisses, more stray hairs than ever escaping from the sides of her ponytail, but her expression was distant with thought. “I think…that you spared him for a reason. You had a rule — to honor your best friend — but we’ve both broken it since then. You killed Ra’s al Ghul because you had to, because there was no way he was going to stop unless he was dead, and I think there’s a strong argument to be made that Slade Wilson is in the same camp.”

“We didn’t kill Darhk,” Oliver reminded her.

“Paralyzed from the waist down and consecutive life sentences in isolation isn’t much better than being dead,” she returned, just as frankly. “And we needed the intel he had on HIVE. Slade Wilson doesn’t have any information we need.”

“What about the people who broke him out?” Oliver asked. “What if they’re just as bad as HIVE — if not worse?”

Felicity inclined her head, in reluctant acceptance of a valid point made. “That’s true. But why are you of all people saying we should spare Slade’s life?”

She’d hit the nail squarely on the head. The fact that there was no reason for Oliver to want to spare Slade’s life — not one directly related to the man, anyway. But there was at least one reason, because of the consequences that one death could have on them, on a fragile ecosystem already under attack from forces they hadn’t even realized.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m just used to someone telling me there’s always another way, and killing Slade Wilson in cold blood seems like something Cadmus thinks the Justice League can and will do. I don’t want that.”

Felicity acknowledged the reference to her advice — years, _years_ ago — with a faint smile. “I know you don’t. But I’ve been thinking, about what Sara said. Not having time to waste on a meta like the Shade. When he first came after you, Slade used Brother Blood and Isabel’s takeover of QC as a distraction. Maybe now, with the metahuman thief, outing Connor in Blüdhaven, his mystery backer with the fat bank account…maybe it’s the same thing.”

“You think everything’s connected?”

“I hate mysteries, but I’m also good at overanalyzing things,” she said. “I think we should try our best not to play into Slade’s hands, which I realize is basically saying that the sky is the sky and north is where north is. I’m saying we should look before we leap.”

“And his life?” Oliver asked, already sensing her answer.

Felicity didn’t respond, but their eyes locked with an intensity that was as palpable as it was unsettling.

Oliver nodded, because he knew. “Slade crossed a line when he took our son,” he said, a blunt statement of the truth. “So show me _our_ line. If killing him means we don’t cross it, then I’m with you. One hundred percent. But I need to know where _our_ line is, because I need to believe that we’re doing this for the right reasons. Reasons bigger than ourselves.”

Felicity was very still. The tension in the room had skyrocketed — unnoticed at first, but now suddenly, _startlingly_ palpable. Oliver softened his voice, reaching across the table as if to bridge a gap. “Show me where the line is.”

After some consideration, Felicity turned the arrow around in her hand, offering it to him as though it was a drawn knife. “I can’t,” she said honestly.

“Felicity —”

Whatever he’d been about to say after that, it went unfinished because the others were filing in again for the final once-over of the plan. Felicity shot Oliver a brief — troubled — look, but turned to their teammates with a bright smile, as though nothing was wrong.

And there wasn’t, not for the time being. The mission came first.

Oliver cleared his throat and endeavored to rearrange his facial expression into something resembling neutral, but the combination of his stilted inability to lie and Felicity’s entirely similar handicap meant that their friends were far from oblivious. It was as though they could sense the residual tension as a matter of instinct, fraying the air with everything left unsaid in the room.

Diggle took the last few steps with deliberate slowness. “Everything okay?” he asked cautiously.

“Everything’s great.” Felicity beamed, which seemed not to reassure him in the least. “Anyone feel like springing a trap? Because I am _so_ there.”

“Uh,” Thea narrowed her eyes at Oliver, in the vein of _what did you do?_ “Okay. Someone’s real perky about staying up all night at the office.”

“You know me. Always whistling on the sunny side of the street,” Felicity answered. “Except I can’t whistle — not really. Look at you, Connor. How’s the disguise?”

Connor flapped his arms in the baggy janitor uniform. “I hate you,” he declared. “I hate every single one of you.”

“I totally get that — but I’m still gonna need you to _promise_ not to get anything on this uniform,” Curtis said. “I borrowed it from Javier in janitorial because it’s his daughter's wedding and I told him I needed a ‘costume’ — see the air quotes I’m using here — for a ‘party’.”

Roy grunted. “So I guess terrible excuses really _is_ a team thing.”

Oliver put a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said, a little quieter. “You don’t have to do this.”

It went without saying — even though the father in Oliver wanted to ask again — that Connor was intent on being a part of the team, and the latter smiled a little. “I know. But I want to.”

Oliver nodded. “You’ll be fine. People don’t look too closely when it’s someone in a uniform,” he explained. “Just stick to the script, and try not to draw too much attention to yourself.”

“Copy that.”

Felicity pushed her tablet to the center of the table and snapped her fingers, a gesture that simultaneously dimmed the lights and brought up a holographic projection of the QI building. “Given the stakes — and our fantastic track record when it comes to well laid plans — it’s probably a good idea to make sure everyone has a grasp of the vitals,” she said, and waved her hands to zoom in on the thirty-third and thirty-fourth floors of the office.

“R&D floors are twenty-nine to thirty-two, and they all need to be cleared, so that’s where Jake the Happy Janitor comes in, with news about a pest problem. Assuming everyone leaves on schedule, the bulk of the action will be on contained to a single zone. My office is on thirty-three, and the private lab — with the vault and decoy stabilizer — is on thirty-four. The two are accessible by elevator, but also by a staircase located near the waiting area.”

The hologram painted her hands and face a ghostly blue as she traced the zigzagging steps between the two floors and circled the columns by the stairwell. “Perimeter one will take cover here, good position for easy backup. Perimeter two will be on a rooftop exactly north of the vault to provide cover, and I’ll be in the lab with Curtis, which will be rigged up and ready to go with Constantine’s interference juju.”

Curtis was ready to take over for the gadgetry explanation. “Small update on the trap mechanism. As a scientist, using a jar of dirt, some pebbles and burnt feathers in strategic corners of a room feels like feng shui, not a plan, so I tried combining the ingredients into a single unit — you know — like an alarm plate. Didn’t work. The rune doohickies did _not_ like it. I almost lost a finger from the blowback.”

“So magic is finicky and excessively temperamental,” Diggle concluded. “Sound like anyone we know?”

“Well, at least that someone’s reasonably amenable if you pour him a scotch on the rocks,” Oliver said, as though it was a reassurance. “But I think we’re ready. The Shade won’t be expecting company, or that we know he’s coming. That’s our advantage — we use it, get him into lockdown, and find some answers.”

A few of them looked taken aback at his brusqueness, but Oliver remained firm. Like Sara said, they were running out of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random Stuff:  
> Before you say I'm going to hell (already there), I have a love-hate relationship with Olicity fights. I like the fights while they're a stable couple, but not the angsty will-they-won't-they stuff a la Vampire Diaries (glaring at you, Arrow writers).  
> As a fun little preview (or warning), my mind factory just churned out something really evil. Like pretty bad. Might happen to either Oliver or Felicity, soon-ish. Just putting it out there.  
> ANYWAY. I'm having fun. Possibly in my own circle of hell.


	30. A Little Bit of Chaos

“I have eyes on Baby Arrow,” Roy whispered. “He’s moving down to thirty-one.”

The _rat-tat-tat_ of the janitor’s cart stopped halfway down the corridor, and Connor twisted around to glare at the far end, like he could see through his uncle’s hiding spot. “I swear to _all_ my gods that if one of you calls me Baby Arrow again —”

“Just ignore him,” Oliver said evenly, similarly close by and hidden. “Thirty-two’s a ghost town. You’re doing great, Freelancer.”

“About that — was there a shortage of codenames that don’t make me sound like a semi-unemployed magazine photographer?” he said.

Diggle chuckled at the snub to his old alias. “Oh, junior, you’re gonna break your uncle’s heart.”

“Boys, there’s a security sweep coming your way,” Felicity warned. “Freelancer, you’ll look new to him, so show him your ID when he asks, but do _not_ engage. You’ll have backup if it goes south.”

Though it shouldn’t have been surprising to him, Oliver wished she’d phrased the sentence in a less alarming way.

“What backup? Wh—”

Connor broke off abruptly, and Oliver pressed further into the shadows at the sound of heavy footsteps. “Oracle, I need a vantage point,” he whispered.

There was a low electronic click, and a vent cover swung open in front of him. “Way ahead of you,” she said. “Vent access. I’d say bring a ladder, but you could probably just —”

Oliver took the last few paces at a short run and sprang up the side of the wall, twisting almost mid-air to grasp the metal ledge with his fingers. He hung briefly from the ceiling before making use of the momentum to pull himself into the ventilation shaft, which shut neatly after him to total darkness.

“—parkour it,” Felicity finished. “Beautiful form, by the way.”

Despite the lingering edge of their prior disagreement, Oliver had to smile. “It’s all the salmon ladder,” he answered. “You’re my eyes and ears, Oracle. Tell me when to drop.”

“Keep crawling, five paces. Needless to say, I care very deeply about my employees. You’re set to _stun_ , and I don’t mean that in a _oh my god you’re stunning_ way, I mean that in a _cause permanent injury and I will give you brain freeze_ way. Three paces.”

Roy made a gagging noise. “I didn’t need to know any of that.”

“Stop,” Felicity ordered. “Standby.”

Oliver could hear the security guard approaching Connor a few feet below. From the sound of it, Connor was pretending to mop around his general floor area. “Evening,” he said, his voice two pitches deeper than usual.

“Where’s Javi? He’s usually on Thursdays.”

There was a pause. “Uh…bad Indian food. Hit him real bad. Stuff… _everywhere_. I’m subbing in.”

Felicity said what they were all thinking. “Well, it’s not _great_.”

The guard didn’t seem to think so either. “Let’s see some ID,” he said, sounding deeply suspicious.

“Sure,” Connor said breezily. “Didn’t really get my good side though.”

The guard grunted. “Haven’t I seen you before?”

Another pause. “Don’t think so. I just have one of those faces.”

Not good at all.

“We need to reset,” Oliver said shortly, and shoved open the vent.

“Oliver, _don’t_ —”

Oliver didn’t hear the rest of her warning, because he’d landed behind the security guard and locked both arms behind his neck. Tightly, disregarding the fierce struggle from a security guard almost in Diggle’s weight class.

“Dad!”

“Oliver!” Felicity snapped.

“ _Easy_ ,” Diggle said.

Oliver ignored all three of them, holding on until the security guard’s eyes rolled back into his head and his fists — which had been beating against Oliver’s forearms — went limp.

Connor was wide-eyed with shock. “Did you _kill_ him?” he demanded.

Oliver eased his arms out from under the guard’s neck and ducked to sling him over his back. “He’s just unconscious. Won’t remember anything when he wakes up.”

“Bullshit,” Connor said. “How do you know?”

Oliver shot him a fierce look for the cursing. “Because I’ve tried it on your uncle John. Arsenal, I need you to take over here. Oracle, can you get me to the security center without running into a sweep?”

“Oh, so all of a sudden you’re listening to me again?” she said acidly. “You know they used to _shoot_ people for insubordination, right?”

“Good thing I’m not your subordinate then,” Oliver said, making his way towards the stairwell. “Headed downstairs now.”

“No, you’re my partner — which makes the whole _trust Felicity she’s your eyes and ears in the field when there’s imperfect information_ -spiel you went on in front of your son a little…what’s the word… _redundant_ ,” she responded, imitating his voice when she recited the content of his speech to Connor. “Dean — the guard you knocked out, just BTW — was going to check his ID and let him leave. Jesus, Oliver, overreaction much?”

“No, he wasn’t,” Oliver said, no less heatedly. “He was suspicious and he would have recognized Connor. He’s my son, Felicity. My first priority is keeping him safe, even if he’s in the field.”

“And mine isn’t? You said it yourself that Connor needs to learn, and this was a chance for him to do that in a low-risk situation. He did fine clearing one floor by himself, and he doesn’t need you charging in to smash the reset button whenever there’s a roadblock — it _doesn’t_ work that way. You can’t fight all his battles for him.”

“That’s not —”

“All right,” Diggle interrupted. “Maybe there’s a better time to fight about this, you two.”

Felicity faltered. “John — oh. I thought — I thought only Oliver’s line was still open.”

“Nope,” said Connor. “Though I do love it when everyone fights about me — makes me feel big and important inside. Like when mom called dad a big _Doo-Doo-Head_ when she found out that I _wasn’t_ at climbing practice.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Oliver muttered, at the child-friendly summary of Sandra’s precise choice of language.

“Yeah, mine’s still open too,” Thea added. “Speaking for myself and Roy, It’s very uncomfortable when the grownups fight.”

“Both of you bicker all the time,” Felicity pointed out.

“Yeah but that’s us,” Roy said. “You two are supposed to be making heart eyes at each other all day. What gives? Who forgot the anniversary present?”

As much as Oliver would have enjoyed a discussion of his and Felicity’s personal lives over several lines of communications, during an ongoing mission, it was neither the time nor the place.

“Can we just — get back to the mission, please?” he said. “Security center.”

“Right,” Felicity agreed, sounding just as happy about it as he did. “Security center.”

* * *

Felicity pressed her clasped fists to her forehead. “This is going well,” she breathed. “This is going very, very well.”

“I dropped one of the stones,” Curtis said, sprawled somewhere on the ground like he’d lost a contact lens. “Do you think that messes with the jujubeans?”

“Don’t think so,” she muttered, still concentrating on the calm intake of life-sustaining oxygen, not on the fact that Oliver was going rogue in the interests of his family-only blindspot. “Remind me to send Dean a nice holiday card. And a raise.”

“Should I do that now, or wait until Oliver’s finished taking down the whole building’s security team?” Curtis laughed, which quickly trailed off into silence at the expression on Felicity’s face. “Okay, too soon for humor, I see that now. Look, my husband Paul reacts the same way whenever I hurt myself. Total tunnel vision and shutdown. The last time it was base jumping, and I pulled a muscle in my left hamstring. Went completely _nuts_ — wouldn’t even let me get up to make myself a cup of coffee.”

Felicity wasn’t surprised about Curtis’s extensive and adrenaline-junkie hobbies, but she did laugh into her hands because there was just no way to equate the situation. Unless Paul had a tendency to break out sneaky ninja neck holds that caused temporary memory loss. “Well, that made me feel about five percent better,” she declared. “Arsenal, Freelancer, what’s your status?”

“Thirty-two and thirty-one are clear.”

“Fan-tastic.” Felicity pushed across the floor to get to the main computer, bringing up the modification to company records. “The toad is in the hole,” she said, in her best _secret mission_ voice. “Repeat, the toad is in the hole. Standby for fireworks.”

Diggle coughed from his end of the comms. “That is _not_ code for anything, Oracle,” he said. “I have eyes on the asset. Delta perimeter is covered.”

“So you’re allowed to sound cool but I’m not?” she answered, glaring at the far window as though Diggle could see her fierce expression from the opposing rooftop. “Never mind. Anyone else feeling like we should have sprung for a fancier container?”

By that, Felicity meant the completely un-fancy petri dish of speckled black dirt, set (by Constantine’s estimate at least) in the exact corner of the thirty-fourth floor. Fun fact of the day: simple math and simple occult design had completely different definitions of what constituted a _corner_.

Typical.

As someone who’d personally curated the Queen family’s extensive antiquities inventory, Thea snorted from one floor below. “For the graffiti rocks or the funeral dirt?” she asked. “Where did you even _find_ this stuff?”

“I know a guy,” Roy said vaguely. “What? When you’re an investigator —”

“—part-time investigator —” Diggle muttered.

“—you meet different kinds of people, and yes, some of them may or may not have access to cemeteries. I try not to ask too many questions unless someone’s paying me to.”

Constantine whistled. “How’s that working out for you, mate?”

“Shut up.”

“Boys,” Sara said, in her _now now, let’s not kill each other yet_ -voice. She was on the neighboring rooftop with Diggle, probably beating him at Yahtzee. “Everything’s quiet on Delta. The containment unit isn’t reporting any issues, and I’m not picking up anything strange on the police scanners.”

“Hang tight, it’s still early,” Felicity said, but in the vein of sticking to the point, she refreshed the screen and leaned back in her chair. “Okay, the updated location just went live on company records. Do you think leaving a cross-chain in the third Epsilon level was overkill? Because I’m starting to think that it was.”

A pause. “Felicity, honey, remember when we agreed that you’d use English for missions?” Oliver said, in a placid, _walking-on-eggshells-oh-just-discussing-the-weather_ tone of voice.

Felicity spun around in her chair, though the accurate verb — given the amount of force she’d exerted on the floor and/or table edge — was probably _whipped_. “Right. My bad. Another one of my many questionable tics. Sometimes I forget who I’m talking to.”

Curtis had been working across the room, strategically positioned to activate Constantine’s interference spell (shifting a rune-marked stone about two inches right), and Felicity saw him shoot a questioning look in her direction, like he’d detected the edge in her voice too.

Which she ignored. If Felicity had the ability to shoot lasers out of her eyes, the computer screen would have melted through thirty-four floors and made a nice new lava pond in the ground floor lobby.

“I left a vulnerable point in the QI mainframe, since we know our little hacker friend uses company records to track down what he wants to steal. Might make this a little easier — like dangling some fish in front of a bear. I just hope that it doesn’t turn into a _They Know That We Know They Know_ situation, because I’m really bad with adverbs.”

“Wouldn’t it be cool — but also scary — if the meta and the hacker were the same person?” Curtis mused, spinning his stool in a meditative circle. “Like, imagine _the_ primordial power of supreme darkness and someone like… _Felicity_ in one person. I mean, _that_ would be pretty epic. But also — you know — bad.”

“Thank you, Curtis,” said Diggle. “GA, what’s your status?”

“Uneventful,” Oliver reported. “I dropped the security guard off at the monitoring center. He’ll think he fell asleep on the job.”

“Taken anyone else out on the way?” Felicity asked snippily.

“No, and I’ve handed monitoring off to Arsenal. I’m on thirty-three now for perimeter watch.”

_Like we agreed_ , seemed to be the subtext. Felicity could tell it was meant to be an apologetic gesture — as apologetic as Oliver Queen could get, anyway.

“Good,” she answered. “Settle in — I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.”

* * *

The comms went quiet, and Oliver muted his side so he could release a pent-up sigh of frustration. His temples were throbbing in time to his pulse, and his shoulders felt like cinderblocks for all the strain they carried. Thea, Constantine and himself were keeping watch in the shadow of the staircase that linked Felicity’s office to her private lab, and because their floor was meant to be unoccupied, the only light came from the reflections in the glass steps, filtering through in shades of faint blue.

The scarce light put his senses into overdrive, which was what Oliver told himself, in explanation for why the smallest noise — the creak of leather, the tap of a shoe — made him wince.

Not because of the way the mission was turning out, or the stubborn wall of silence between the thirty-third and thirty-fourth floor. The rare occasions when they fought were unpleasant to Oliver’s memory, because — very simply put — he hated it.

The worst relationships of his life had seen some explosive fights, complete with harsh words, the storming out and slamming doors. If his memory served, one of his exes had even thrown a hairdryer at his head, another a whole glass bowl of fruit that shattered upon impact. Those hadn’t affected him in the same way a verbal argument with Felicity could, even in the absence of throwing things at each other.

Oliver preferred to think that the occasions for disagreement between himself and Felicity were few and far between, but they were still worse. After years of having his world turned upside down, he was hardwired to find balance — _peace_ — and Felicity was that, to him. Which was why fighting left a fundamental disconnect that felt like he was standing on two left feet, like everything that came out of his mouth had the capacity to sound so much worse than how he’d imagined it in his head.

He had no doubt that they’d patch things up later, in their own way, but he couldn’t help but think it was colored by their earlier conversation about Slade. The mere mention of him and the awareness that he continued to loom over their heads had simultaneously triggered him into overprotectiveness of Connor, and Felicity into defense mode.

They were supposed to be a team, but they weren’t working like one.

Which was dangerous.

“I don’t make it my business to pry, mate, so take this as a stray observation and not an invitation to share, but you and the missus are _not_ fine,” Constantine said, punctuating the sentence with a click of his lighter.

Thea plucked the cigarette from Constantine’s mouth before he could light it, and threw it neatly into a trash can waiting beside the EA’s desk. “You can’t smoke in here,” she said flatly. “But yeah, I agree with that, and it _is_ an invitation to share.”

Constantine grunted, craning his neck to look for the discarded cigarette. “Where’s the fun in a stakeout if you can’t even have a bleeding smoke?”

Oliver didn’t bother dignifying the complaint with an answer. “I may have overreacted a little with Connor,” he admitted. “I should have held back.”

“If this were a varsity soccer game, you’re basically the embarrassing dad on the sidelines,” Thea said, bumping him reassuringly on the knee. “Hey, at least you didn’t come armed with orange slices and Gatorade.”

“It’s not a _game_ , Speedy. That’s what I’m trying to get him to understand — doing what we do takes training, and precision.”

“It also takes trust, and not making decisions without consulting the rest of the team,” Thea said reasonably. “You brought him in — which means you’re not just supposed to be his teacher. You’re supposed to take your own advice and show him what that looks like in practice.”

“You know there’s a saying, _those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach_ ,” Constantine said laconically, now lounging on the EA’s desk with his shoes on the keyboard.

The siblings looked away from Constantine at the same time, except in Thea’s case there was an eye-roll.

“Ignoring the hot British guy for a second,” she said. “I know it’s hard to let go when someone you love is in the field, but you just have to. Or they’ll never learn how to fight for themselves, and Connor’s a fighter, Ollie. Let him try.”

Oliver didn’t disagree with that, not in theory anyway, and he gave a small nod to show that he’d heard her. Thea smiled a little in encouragement and leaned on the marble behind her shoulders. They were each sitting against a column like sentries, their feet almost touching in the middle. Their bows — one red, one black — rested on the ground within easy reach, and their hands were both in perpetual movement, nervous tics coming out in full force.

She was his sister. Practically the same person, and he knew he could tell her anything.

“It’s not just that,” Oliver said quietly. “I think…I think Felicity and I have very different opinions about how to handle Slade Wilson.”

In the corner of his eye, he saw Thea’s head turn, her short dark hair gleaming even in low light. “She wants to kill him,” she guessed. “And you don’t.”

“I do,” Oliver admitted. “I want him dead. But I’ve learned that wanting someone dead isn’t the only reason that should matter.”

“Cadmus,” Thea sighed. “Again.”

“Someone like Slade Wilson deserves to stand trial for his crimes. Malcolm and Ra’s never got that luxury.”

“But Malcolm Merlyn and Ra’s al Ghul didn’t kill mom,” Thea said, staring straight ahead of her. She had Moira’s eyes, and they were the same kind of unreadable, the same kind of distance that meant her walls were subconsciously up.

She’d stopped calling Malcolm _dad_ for years now.

She’d stopped going to see him a little after that.

“Mom would have had Slade killed in his sleep, you know,” she added, miming a stabbing motion. “Right through the eye.”

Oliver chafed his fingertips together, deep in thought. He was remembering the salt water and fresh blood on his hands, the yawning groan of a ship sinking fast into unknown depths — the slickness of the arrow shaft and the sickening _give_ of sinking it into Slade’s open eye.

“So did I,” Oliver said bluntly. “When I faced him on that rooftop in Starling City, I wanted to kill him — I wanted to kill him so badly that I thought the smartest — the safest — thing to do was put him in a cell, before I could do something I’d regret. I killed him once, on the Amazo, and it came back to bite. I sent him to prison without a trial, and he would have killed my son. Each time I’ve faced Slade Wilson, I made a choice because I didn’t trust myself — what I would do. I don’t intend to repeat that mistake a third time.”

Thea exhaled again. “Didn’t think you were the superstitious type, brother dearest,” she said. “But I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand. You think that you are your worst enemy when it comes to Slade Wilson, so this time…you’re not going to doubt yourself.”

“No,” Oliver said. “I won’t.”

In theory, anyway.

* * *

“Oh my…” Curtis paused to give another gigantic yawn “… _god_. I can’t stop thinking about sheep. They’re running over the fence, those little…cute…fluffy…pill—”

The rest of the sentence ended in a series of (adorable) snuffle noises, and Curtis thumped forehead-first into the decoy quantum stabilizer, glasses and safety goggles still on. There were shelves of chemicals behind Curtis’s head, and she swore they quivered a little when he gave a huge dragging snore.

Curtis Holt was officially dead to the world.

“ _Pillerskuffle_ ,” Felicity repeated, looking up from the light blaster arrowhead she’d been tinkering with. “Great.”

“Anyone still awake?” Diggle grunted, sounding like he’d frozen _something_ off, lying belly-first on a rooftop for most of the night with a rifle sight glued to his eye.

“Other John’s asleep,” Thea said, her voice sandpaper scratchy. “I think he lost a game of cards to himself.”

“I feel fine,” Connor said, with the enviable energy reserves of a sixteen-year-old kid.

“So do I,” said Sara, but mostly because she was still on a different time zone.

“Should we call it a night?” Roy asked, ignoring his nephew. “What time’s the sunrise these days, anyway?”

“Six-thirty,” Felicity said. “Which is…three-ish hours away. And no, we’re not calling it a night. Not —” She broke off to pinch her nose, which was what Donna had taught her to do whenever she was about to yawn, “—yet.”

“Imagine I said this nicely,” Thea rasped, “but _oh god why_?”

Felicity fanned at her face, eyes watering from a suppressed yawn. “Calculated a pattern,” she managed. “All of the Shade’s old hits look unpredictable, until you factor in the time of day. They all took place during a certain time frame, when the night is — scientifically speaking — the darkest. That rules out any time when solar illumination is in the upper atmosphere — nautical twilight, civil twilight, sunrise. I’m guessing since he works based off something like darkness, his powers respond to his environment. Which means, twilight bad, nighttime good. We’re all creatures of habit, especially if we’re on the wrong side of the law. He’ll strike when he feels the strongest, which is…” She glanced at the time “…still now. So we wait.”

“I can’t tell if I’m just super tired, or if that was the smartest thing I’ve ever heard,” Roy said. “Also — you’re a super nerd.”

Felicity knew he meant it as a compliment. “Thanks. I try.”

Oliver picked that very moment to chime in, and his voice gave her a little start. “So we wait,” he said in confirmation.

Whether intentionally or by design, the comms lapsed back into silence again. Felicity stared at the separate audio channels for each of the team members, lingering the longest on Oliver’s. She ran her fingernails along the grooves in the arrowhead, thinking.

It took her a long time to reach for the keyboard, but she did, and opened a single channel.

It took her an even longer time to say something.

“Hey,” she said, past her knuckles. “Awake?”

Oliver made a soft noise, partway between an affirmative _hm_ and a sigh, the same sound he made whenever she bugged him in the middle of the night to talk, when her thoughts were spinning so fast like a car veering out of control that she couldn’t go to sleep without spilling it all out to someone.

Preferably with a cuddle. And other things. Other, touch-related nice things.

It set off a keen ache in her heart, a little pinch that reminded her of the suckier side to loving someone the way she loved Oliver. He could drive her crazy, but in a way that was impossible to hate, not even if she was angry — frustrated — _something_ — with him.

Not even a little.

“Are we fighting?” she asked. “Over this? Right now? Because _fight_ implies an actual exchange, and I feel like what happened just now _was_ an exchange, like in the _shots fired_ kind of way, but it wasn’t verbal, like we weren’t saying…what we really wanted to say.”

“I hate it when we fight, and I hate what’s happening right now,” Oliver said heavily. “So — yes. It feels like we’re fighting.”

“Over You Know Who,” Felicity said. “And yes, that was an unintentional _Harry Potter_ reference. Except saying You Know Who's name doesn’t send the Death Eaters apparating over to kill us — it just makes you and me total cranky…kangaroos. Who punch people, by the way, because kangaroos are complete asses.”

She really hated kangaroos.

“Only you could put wizards and kangaroos in the same sentence,” Oliver said, but it didn’t sound like a complaint. Not at all.

Why couldn't they fight like normal people?

Felicity bit her lip. “Oliver, you asked me what I thought, and I think we’re in an unusual position. There’s no answer that won’t cost us something…something we might not be able to get back.”

“That’s not an answer, Felicity. Is it unusual because we know what we should do, but we just don’t want to? Or something else you’re not telling me? Because I would really like to k—”

“It’s unusual because I’m not the one who’s going to hold you back this time,” she said, in a rush. “I think you should do it. And by _you_ , I mean _we_. Or just — me. But the bottom line is: I think Slade Wilson needs to be taken off the board…for good.”

Oliver was quiet for a few moments, but she heard a faint _thump_ , like his head had gone back to rest against the wall. “You’re not serious. I thought you said what you said because of Tommy getting hurt. We have him back now, and…” he trailed off, like even he didn’t know what he’d expected that to change.

“And…I’m supposed to be the beacon of hope. The one who tells you not to lose your humanity, not to give into the demons,” she guessed. “We both know it’s not that simple with us.”

Silence.

“Oliver?” Felicity sat up, her hand to her ear. “Still there?”

Instead of his voice, there was a garbled echo of something else — indistinct whispers, soft and creeping, like spider legs tickling her skin.

Felicity spun around to find the computers excessively on the fritz, jumping between frames of nonsensical code and general tech _wrongness_ like a Japanese horror movie Cisco would have been able to geek-reference — which meant one thing.

“ _Frack_ ,” she breathed, and the room plunged into perfect, suffocating darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys,  
> My summers tend to get a bit crazy because of work experience/general CV-boosting stuff, so I can’t make any promises about updates. I start work next Monday, and if it turns out to be really tiring there will probably be some radio silence on my end (but just for two weeks). I will try to write a bit more (as I’m doing right now) so I can update something during that period of time. Fingers crossed.
> 
> Some general housekeeping stuff:  
> Thank you, thank you, thank you to the lovely people who take the time to leave kudos, and write thoughtful, encouraging comments. I don’t mention feedback a lot and I’m actually pretty terrible at responding to them myself, but I promise you that they bring a big, BIG smile to my face, even a chuckle to this cold, dead, resting bitchface.  
> I can’t stress enough that they’re fantastic. They are people taking time to think about what they’ve just read and write something about it. More importantly, they tell me that someone’s actually still reading the chapters and that I should keep writing.  
> I don’t know how many of you are still here from my first story, but you’ll remember that the chapters used to go up at three/four-day intervals. That’s not proved to be the case in Story #2, and especially not Story #3. But in my defense, the chapters were much shorter, and the League of Assassins storyline practically wrote itself. I still have no idea why.
> 
> I am proud of myself for not leaving a story unfinished (knock on wood), and I never want to do that. But you can probably tell that it’s getting harder to write as fast and as easily as I used to. Maybe I’m just getting worse at what I do. Maybe it’s because I am aware of expectations and I try to keep the chapters at a certain quality before I post them. Maybe it’s because Arrow thus far has been pretty damn frustrating at times, and it’s the kind of ticked-off that makes me want to break a keyboard and flip off the folks at the CW (baby. mama. storyline. forever bitter. i am the north. will not forget.)  
> I do apologize if my episode notes have been extremely ranty/bitter. But hey, it is an optional read, and I reserve the right to flick as much paint on my wall as I want.  
> ANYWAY.  
> That was a lot of “I”s in the last paragraph. Which goes towards my point. Writing can be an awfully selfish habit. Any story starts with what I want to write and what I want to see on the page, and sometimes it just so happens that the people who read it want to see something like that too (hi there).   
> So the starting point is pretty isolated. It’s just me in front of my computer with earbuds in, listening to trailer music playlists while I try to figure out what weird situation Oliver and Felicity will be in next. Feedback makes it feel less lonely. Really. It reminds me that I’m not writing into a void. It reminds me that I’m not staring at a blank white wall.
> 
> But I am aware (given my terrible track record with responding to comments) that there are many reasons why people don’t leave feedback, and I’m not going to go into them (my best friend will read all the Stucky smut fics in the world over a six-hour binge but never leave a kudo or a comment).
> 
> Here’s where I’m at. I don’t like to leave things unfinished, and I’ll pretty much keep writing either way. I have a lovely, very encouraging messaging buddy in Paris who keeps me on my toes, and I’m still trying to get her to write something over the summer, so it’s a tradeoff situation with the potential for big fanfic-related rewards :DDDD (doooo it Bruni) 
> 
> Generally speaking, I am motivated by responses to the stuff I post. The lack of them won’t stop me, but they do slow me down. Comments are a litmus test to gauge where everyone else is at. If the response is muted, it means that I can take my time with the updates, maybe step away to do some other things for a bit (as one does). If the response is enthusiastic, then holy shit I’d better fix that last cliffhanger. 
> 
> So, respectfully, it would be nice if every now and then, you could drop me a line to let me know you’re still reading. What’s working? What’s not? I know I’ve just said that I write selfishly, but there have been times where I’ve made huge turns because a comment gave me an idea or a suggestion, and it’s worked out really well. I fiercely resist attempts to have me join Twitter, because 140 characters is clearly not a possibility with this amount of rambliness (see above). I do have a Tumblr (Chronicolicity), and I would be absolutely chuffed to talk. I love to geek, and geeks are always happy to connect with other geeks.
> 
> So hey, if you do decide to give me a poke, it's nice to meet you in advance. If not, it's a shame, but read on. Until the next update, and cheers!


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